LIBRARY^F CONGRESS. 

®i^pi'.~i:- ^m'"M 1»*---.- 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



FRATERNITY PAPERS 



BY 



EDWARD HENRY ELWELL 



Aiitlior of "The Boys of TiriuTY-FiVK" 









^ MAY 191 see' ) 



PORTLAND 

ELWELL, riCKARD & CO. 
HOYT, FOGG & DONHAM 

1886 



R^ 






COPYRIGHT BY 
EDWARD HENRY ELAVELL 

1886 



Transcript Press 

James S. Staples, printer 

Portland 



PREFACE. 



■ Manuscrip.ts are but idle and cumbersome things at the best. 
These fugitive papers, having served their purpose in the reading 
before the Club which drew them forth, have been thrown into 
book form that they may the more readily be placed upon the 
shelf, there to gather dust, or to be occasionally taken down and 
passed from hand to hand as their interest, or the lack of it, may 
determine. E. H. E. 

May, 1886. 



CONTENTS. 



What We Stumbled upon one day in Flohence, - Page 7 
The Building of the House, ------ 37 

Humor of Dialect, - - - 72 

Dkeams, ----- ^^ 

Conversation, - - - - xokj 

UlSCOVEKY OF the MISSISSIPPI, ------ 163 

The White Mountains, - 1^6 

The Aborigines of Maine, - 213 

The Puritan Sermon, 254 

After-Thoughts, - - - ^^^ 



WHAT WE STUMBLED UPON ONE DAY 
IN FLORENCE. 



There are two ways of looking upon most things, and 
this is particularly true of new and strange scenes. The 
traveller who, duly guided, and with Baedeker in hand, 
wanders through a foreign city, has the proper objects of 
interest pointed out to him, and goes away thinking he has 
seen all there is of it. That depends upon whether he has 
really employed his own powers of observation, or used the 
eyes of his guide. The observing faculty is not so much 
in the eye as in the mind, and we see not those objects 
which are pointed out to us, but those which we have the 
capacity to see. 

My friend, the artist, had his own way of capturing a 
city. He took it by assault. With a fine scorn of all 
guides, commissionaires, custodians, and other like banditti, 
he strode forth, and with only his all-observing eyes, and a 
pair of seven-league boots, which never tired, he marched 
on, until all he saw was his. 

It was in this spirit that we salHed forth, one blazing 
day in the month of July, in pursuit of the Academy of 



8 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

Fine Arts, in the city of Florence, where are to be seen 
the master-pieces of modern Italian artists, as well as the 
works of the ancient masters. Fair Florence, city of flow- 
ers, is not beautiful in its outward aspect. Its streets are 
narrow, its architecture plain, its palaces heavy, somber, 
and severe, with walls dark, massive, and frowning like for- 
tresses, as indeed they had need to be in the troublous 
times in which they were built. But within these forbid- 
ding walls there is a wealth of art and beauty. Churches 
which are dilapidated in their exterior, within are gorgeous 
with marble, gold, pictures, monuments and statues. How 
formal are the close-chpped walks of the Bobali Gardens, 
and what a mediieval look has the old ducal Palace, with 
its massive square walls, its great projecting battlements, 
and tall watch tower, whose alarm bell summoned the peo- 
ple to arms in the days of the republic. 

But that which most pressed itself upon our attention on 
this bright summer day was the piercing quality of the 
Italian sunshine. It strikes through one like a lance. No 
wonder the Florentines made their streets narrow, and 
built their houses high. They afford a grateful shade, as 
striking in its coolness as is the sunshine in its fervor. We 
crept through the narrow streets in the shadow of the 
buildings, and when we encountered an open square a-flood 
with dazzling light and heat, to cross it was like advancing 
on a battery under a hot fire. The Italians have a say- 
ing that only dogs and Englishmen walk in the sunshine. 
I thought that counted us in. We had not even the yel- 



ONE DAY IN FLORENCE. 9 

low umbrella which the Italian carries as habitually to 
shield him from the sun, as the Englishman carries his 
black one to protect him from his leaky skies. The delight- 
ful uncertainty of our course added its friction to the heat 
of the day. But nothing melted the determination of the 
artist. He has an instinct for finding his way, and at all 
events was certain that in this storied city, the home of art, 
he could go nowhere and see nothing that would not have 
an interest for him. 

Yet we missed the object of our search. We peered 
behind the heavy curtains, which, in place of doors, shut out 
from the churches the glare and noise of the outer world, 
— but it was not there. There is nothing attractive or dis- 
tinctive in the external aspect of the ordinary Italian basil- 
ica. No spire points out the house of God, and you may 
not distinguish a church from a museum. The white con- 
vent walls shutting in everything that is remarkable within, 
in straight lines of blank enclosure, are scarcely less inter- 
esting outside, than is the lofty gable-end which forms the 
fagade of most churches in Florence, whether clothed in 
shining lines of marble or rugged coat of plaster. 

At last -we crossed a sunshiny square, and dashed boldly 
into a respectable building, that promised at least a refuge 
from the blazing sun. How grateful was the coolness and 
dimness of the place. The architecture of Italy is based 
on the plan of shutting out the sun and shutting in the 
gloom and dampness. In summer the churches and art 
galleries are refreshing in their coolness ; in winter they 
are chilly as caverns. 



10 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

The inevitable custodian was at hand. We asked no 
questions, but followed him between cloistered walls, cov- 
ered with those wrecks of faded pictures, which one scarce 
thinks to look at until he is told they are things to be 
admired, — he wonders why. We were first taken into a 
lofty hall which proved to be a library, and were there 
shown a collection of illuminated missals. Each page was 
illuminated with a beautiful miniature picture, in water col- 
ors and burnished gold, and the text was most elegantly 
done. The binding of these old volumes, which ante-date 
the art of printing, was most curiously substantial. "Fra 
Angelico," said our guide. It was the key that opened the 
whole building to us. This then Avas the convent of San 
Marco, of all the historical edifices of the city, sacred by 
right of the feet that have trodden there, perhaps the most 
interesting and attractive. It was here that the Domini- 
can brother, of blessed memory, painted his immortal pic- 
tures ; it was here that the good Archbishop Antonio 
earned his canonization by his saintly deeds ; it was here 
that Savonarola preached to excited crowds, and it was here 
that he was beseiged by mad Florence, wildly seeking the 
blood of the prophet who had not given it the miracle it 
sought. 

It is not always easy, even in the midst of historical 
scenes, to transport ourselves into the past. The hurry of 
travel, the distraction of the actual present, the incongru- 
ity of surrounding objects, all conspire to dispel the charm 
of antiquity, to make it difficult to realize that we stand in 



ONE DAY IN FLORENCE. H 

the presence of the mighty dead. But this was a spot that 
made the fifteenth century as yesterday, and placed us in 
the very heart of the past. Its stillness, its seclusion, shut 
out the present from us, while all of its associations were 
of another age. The life of the place had departed, for 
San Marco is no longer a convent. No black-and-white 
monk now bars smilingly, to profane feminine feet, the en- 
trance to the sunny cloister ; no brethren of St. Dominic 
inhabit the hushed and empty cells. Chapter-house, refec- 
tory, library, all lie vacant and open — a museum for the 
state — a blank piece of public property, open to any chance 
comer. 

But it is only since 1868 that the necessity of state has 
emptied it of its traditionary inhabitants, and converted it 
into a repository of the precious things of the past. It was 
to this fact that we owed our admittance to it, and the 
strange thing about it was that it so succeeded in disguis- 
ing its antiquity. Is this the house that Cosmo de Medici 
built for the monks more than four hundred years ago ? It 
seemed of a piece with all its surroundings, and no older 
than its neighbors. But that is the spell of these old cities ; 
everything is in harmony because everything is ancient. 

As we followed our silent guide along the corridors, and 
up the stairs, we thought of the stirring scenes these old 
walls had witnessed, as well as of the long years of quiet 
occupation by the Dominican brotherhood. He led us to 
the attic story, with its open timbered roof, and a long cor- 
ridor running through its center, on each side of which was 



12 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

a row of small cells. This was the dormitory, and it was 
here that Fra Angelico painted his luminous frescoes, which 
are still the admiration of all lovers of art. The cells are 
severely simple, narrow and low, with barely room for a 
table, a chaii' and a narrow bed, and each dimly lighted by 
a little arched window high up in the wall, but each is also 
illuminated by one glorious pa^e in the life of the Saviour, 
painted on the wall by the loving artist. There are the 
Annunciation, the Nativity, the Presentation in the Tem- 
ple, the Adoration of the Magi, the Baptism of Christ, the 
Sermon on the Mount, with many others, including the Cru- 
cifixion, the Burial, and the Descent into Hell. Scratched, 
defaced, faded, as many of them are, the coloring is still 
full of sweetness and tenderness. 

As we entered cell after cell, we encountered in one and 
another, a silent artist engaged in copying these works of 
the Angelical brother. Italian art of to-day is largely a 
reproduction of the past. An ItaHan artist told us that 
the cause of his lack of success was that he could not copy, 
— he could paint only original pictures. When Fra Angel- 
ico painted these pictures, more than four jenturies ago, 
this large dormitory was not divided into cells as now. It 
was one large room, like a ward in a hospital, with a row 
of small arched windows high up in the wall, on either side, 
each of which apparently gave a little light and a limited 
space to the monk whose bed flanked the window. 

To decorate this large bare room was the work of the 
artist brother, who painted not for fame, but for the love 



ONE BAY IN FLORENCE. 13 

of God. He put his utmost skill into these works, although 
the strict rule of the convent excluded them from the 
admiration and inspection of the people, and they could be 
seen only by the brethren of the Order. Each brother had 
his own work to do, for these were not idle monks. One 
was copying manuscripts, for the monks were the book- 
makers of the time ; another was busy illuminating them ; 
another was meditating his sermon for the next fast or 
festival, and while all this work went on the artist of the 
Fraternity painted the picture beneath which each brother 
was to sleep and dream. Each one must have taken a 
hvely, and perhaps a jealous interest, in that picture which 
was to be his own. How they must have watched for the 
completion of each picture — the soft, fair faces looking out 
of the blank walls, clothing them with good company, with 
solace and protection. What discussions there may have 
been as to the comparative merits of Angelico's pictures 
and those of his brother, Benedetto, who assisted him in 
the work. Doubtless these monks, simple as they may have 
been, had their standards of taste, their enthusiasm for art. 
One would like to have looked into that long room, and 
seen them all at their work. To be a monk in those days 
was to be a busy, well-occupied and useful man, in no way 
shut out from nature. But all now has changed. The 
government of to-day found their successors useless cum- 
berers of the ground. It took from them the endowment 
which- Cosmo de Medici had given them, and in 1868 
erected their convent into a museum of the State. 



14 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

How silent was this dormitoiy, as we stole from cell to 
cell. The warning figure of the martyred Peter which 
Angelico painted over the doorway below, with finger on 
his lip, was having it all his own way now. The bustle 
and hum of the busy community was no longer heard. 
Not even the vanishing trail of monkish garments could be 
seen in the dim vista of the long corridor. Each cell has 
its own little secluded window, deep in the wall, its own 
patch of sunshine, its own picture — and that is all. There 
is no fire-place, and no longer a bed. The only occupants 
are the figures on the walls, faded out of their past glory — 
less like a picture at all than like celestial shadows, some 
sweet phantasmagoria of lovely things that cannot be quite 
effaced from the very stones that once saw them. 

Angelico painted other pictures in this convent, some of 
which glisten in gold and are well-preserved, but none of 
them brings the gentle old monk so near to us as these 
heavenly shadows beneath which his brethren slept the sleep 
of the righteous. 

Guido, the son of Peter, was born in the neighborhood 
of Florence in the year 1387. In his Hfctime he had no 
lack of other names. Some say his family name was Santi 
Tosini. When he became a monk he took the name Gio- 
vanni. In later years his brethren called him Fra Angel- 
ico , later still his devoted admirers entitled him the Blessed 
Angelico. So his name grew until at last he was known 
as "The Blessed John, called the Angelic, of Fiesole." 

Where, or with whom he studied his art is not known. 



ONE DAT IN FLORENCE. 15 

Perhaps it came to him as a divine gift. We only know 
that at'twenty he entered the Dominican convent at Fie- 
sole. There, in that quiet retreat, on that beautiful hill- 
side, overlooking the lovely valley of the Arno, with the 
busy city of Florence in full view — though no noble dome 
had'^yet crowned the Cathedral, and Giotto's Campanile, 
divinely tall, fair, and light as a lilly-stalk, had not yet 
thrown itself up into mid air, only then as now the rugged 
tower of the Signoria raising up its protecting standard 
from the lower level of ancient domes and lofty houses — 
there on that mount of vision, looking out, as he must have 
done on his solitary evening walks, over the wide landscape, 
with the Arno glittering through its midst like a silver 
thread, the lights and shades of the setting sun giving a 
hundred variations of sweet color, soft glooms, and heav- 
enly shadows, — the Angelical brother dwelt for thirty happy 
years. They must have been happy years, for all this time 
he was busy with his divine art, which was solely devoted 
to the cause of religion, for Angelico painted as he said 
his prayers, out of pure devotion. They believed in art in 
those days as a divine thing. Dominici, the founder of the 
convent, had recommended painting as "a powerful means 
of elevating the soul and developing the holy thoughts of 
the heart." 

Ano;elico seems first to have distinofuished himself as a 
miniaturist, and painter of beautiful manuscripts. Many 
a pure and holy soul in those days devoted itself to the 
embellishment of monastic manuscripts, and truly praised 



IQ FRATEBNITY PAPERS. 

God in colors. The larger part of Angelico's easel pic- 
tures were done in these years, and he was sought bj every 
one to execute work for churches, convents and palaces. 
To all such would-be patrons he used to say, "Get my Pri- 
or's consent, and I will always do what will please you." 
He sought not wealth nor fame. He would not touch the 
money that was given for his paintings, but turned it into 
the treasury of the brotherhood ; wherefore it may well be 
supposed that the Prior was usually very prompt in per- 
mittinii; the mfted brother to exercise his talents on outside 
commissions. 

But these monks were eager to return to Florence from 
which they had been banished long years before. At last 
Cosmo de Medici gave them the opportunity by transfer- 
ring to them, and rebuilding the convent of San Marco, 
originally the property of an order of Silvestrini. The 
monks came down from Fiesole in triumphal procession, 
making the narrow hillside ways resound with psalms, and 
winding in long trains of black-and-white throuo;h the streets 
of their regained home. 

But their new convent was dilapidated and scarcely inhab- 
itable. Cosmo de Medici, who not long before had come 
back to rule the turbulent city that had exiled him, took 
the case in hand, and rebuilt their convent for them, while 
they encamped in huts and watched over the work. No 
doubt they lent a hand, for in those days the monkish orders 
furnished carpenters and masons, as well as sculptors and 
glass-painters. The royal Cosmo gave a commission to a 



ONE BAY IN FLORENCE. 17 

certain monk of the Dominicans to decorate with pictures 
the new walls. Thus Fra Angelico came to this work when 
he was fifty years old. His great picture of the Crucifix- 
ion he painted in the chapter house of the convent, and 
under it monks of San Marco deliberated for four centuries. 
It survives everything — long ages of peace, brief storms of 
violence in which moments count for years ; and again the 
silent ages — quiet, tranquility, monotony, tedium. 

Pope Eugenius himself came to consecrate the new-built 
house, and when he saw what the Angelical painter had 
done, he called him to Rome to execute some work there, 
and with the primitive certainty of his age that excellence 
in one thing must mean excellence in all, he offered Angel- 
ico — humble brother John — the vacant See of Florence. 
Modest Fra Giovanni knew that though it was in him to 
paint, it was not in him to govern monks, so he told the 
Pope that this was not his vocation, but that in his convent 
there was another Frate whose shoulders were equal to the 
burden. The Pope took the advice of this humble brother, 
and made the good Antonino Archbishop — the good Arch- 
bishop who ordered that all that was found in his palace 
when he died, should be given to the poor. All that could 
be found were four ducats I So true had he been to his 
vows of poverty. And this was at a time when the poor 
were more poor, and the rich more brutally indifferent to 
them than we can understand, and every familiar human 
crime with which we are acquainted in these latter days 
set out in rampant breadth of color and shameless openness. 



18 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

As for Fra Angelico he stayed and painted at Rome 
until the death'of Eugenius. Then as the most famous of 
all the painters of Italy, he was called to decorate the 
chapel of the vast basilica of Orvieto, and according to the 
terms of the contract, was to have two hundred ducats of 
gold, of the value of seven pounds each, for every season of 
four months that he should devote to the work. He came 
but once, and of his chosen subject, the Last Judgment, 
painted only the Christ and the choir of prophets. The maj- 
estic figure of Christ, holding the world in one hand, and 
curbing the reprobate with the other, was the source of 
Michael Angelo's inspiration in his Christ at the Sistine 
chapel. Fra Angelico returned to Rome to execute some 
commissions for the new Pope, Nicholas, and there he died 
at the age of sixty-eight, having painted to the end of his 
life with all the freshness of youth. 

Angelico was the embodiment of that devotion of art to 
the service of religion which characterized the Middle Ages. 
His pictures were painted as aids to devotion, and their 
place is in the dim shrines of churches, and not the garish 
light of museums to which most of them have been removed. 
Other artists excel him in science, in elegance, and in nat- 
ural beauty, but none are kis superiors in holiness, purity 
and spiritual beauty. He was the last of the men who 
painted kneeling, whose pictures were unsigned and rarely 
paid for, and were concerned with the sole object of lead- 
ing the thoughts of men and women towards the sufterings 
and the glory of the Saviour and His saints. His earlier 



ONE DAY IN FLORENCE. 19 

works are filled with exuberance, freshness, tenderness, and 
simplicity, as those of a later period excel in grace and noble- 
ness. His angels are lovely beyond description. They are 
indeed mystic, supernal, the highest product of imaginative 
spirituality. He has been called "the grand master of 
mysticism— the greatest painter of the Christian style." 
He could not argue or exhort, but he could set before the 
sinner the sweetest heaven that ever appeared to poetic 
vision, the tenderest friendly angels, the gentlest and loveU- 
est of virgin mothers. He appealed to God for inspiration, 
and so would alter nothing, the will of God being that it 
should be as it was. 

But his gift had its limitations. He could not adequately 
represent scenes of confusion, terror and evil. The dev- 
ils in his pictures are by no means formidable, and the con- 
demned souls appear like naughty children rather than 
beings lost forever. The infinite purity of his seraphs is 
not endowed with power, and their unsearchable love could 
never result in helpfulness. He was as incapable of under- 
standing evil as a child. His atmosphere was innocence, 
holiness and purity. To pure and holy persons he could 
give a noble and beautiful individuality ; but absolute ugli- 
ness, grotesque and unreal, was all the notion he had of the 
wicked. He could not paint agony, or passion, or suffer- 
ing. But he could rise above the prejudice of the cloister 
and deal out impartial justice, as may be seen in his picture 
of the Last Judgment, where several Cardinals and a great 
throng of monks are in the hands of the exultant devils who 



20 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

are dragging them pell-mell towards the seven circles of 
hell. As an artist he was pure, serene and spiritual ; as 
a man he was simple, humble, loving and patient. 

But our guide moved on, as guides are apt to do. He 
gave us little time to bring back the past of this still and 
silent attic, but since our entrance centuries had rolled over 
us. We passed through another long corridor. We came 
to a corner cell, small, and without even one of Angelico's 
angels to glorify it. A bust stood on the wall. "Savona- 
rola," said the guide. We were in the presence of the 
high-hearted monk who undertook the hopeless task of 
reforming the church, when at its worst. This was the 
cell to which he retired to pray, and to which, since his 
time, many a pilgrimage has been made. The rugged face 
looking down upon us from the Avail gave us the sense of 
an actual presence. Here, too, were his writings, showing 
a fine and dehcate hand. We seemed to see him at his 
work, and our thoughts went back to that strange episode 
in the history of Florence, when it was governed by a monk, 
and stood up single-handed against the world, the Pope and 
the Devil. This was the scene of his labors, his triumphs 
and his fall. Strange contrast between the painter and the 
prophet, both of whom are so closely associated with this 
historic building — the one so powerful and so full of beauty, 
the other so stormy, and so tragic in its end. 

Savonarola made quick work of life. His active career, 
so crowded with events, is all comprised within little more 
than twenty years. Born in Ferrara, in 1452, we see him 



ONE DAY IN FLORENCE. 21 

first a sad and silent youth, given to the utterance of strong 
emotions, in solitary places. He was laboring then with 
the burden of his life. Yet this solitary youth had his 
dream of love, from which he was rudely awakened, by 
the scornful rejection of his suit. His family was not suf- 
ficiently exalted to mate with that of Strozzi. He sought 
the lover's relief in poetry, one hope remaining to him still, 
he says : 

"I cannot let it leave me like the rest — 
That in that other life, the best, 
Well will be known which soul most highly springs, 
And which to noblest flight uplifts its wings." 

This was the key-note of his life. He had an ever-abiding 
faith in the ultimate triumph of all that is best and purest 
in this life. He came upon the stage of action in a dark 
and troubled time. "He could not endure," he says, "the 
enormous wickedness of the blinded people of Italy." So 
when he was twenty-three we see him secretly and silently, 
— that he might not pain his mother's heart with the scene 
of parting, — leaving his father's house on a holiday, when 
all the family were gone out to witness the gay doings of 
the time, and taking his lonely way across the sunny plain 
to Bologna, where he presented himself at the convent of 
St. Dominic. The reasoa he gave to his father in the let- 
ter left behind him was, "the great misery of the world, 
the iniquities of men." 

Here he spends seven years in quiet study, occasionally 
preaching in his native Ferrara, and other cities of Lom- 
bardy, until the fame of his eloquence calls him to Flor- 



22 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

ence. Public expectation, there, however, is sadly disap- 
pointed by the diminutive size of the new preacher, his 
awkward gestures, violence of manner, and harsh accents. 
Florence is nothing if not critical. It first ridicules and 
then neglects him. He turns his back upon the city and 
goes out to preach among the hills. At Reggio, young 
Pico, friend and flatterer of the magnificent Lorenzo, hears 
him and is charmed. At his solicitation Lorenzo orders 
Savonarola back into Florence — him, the only, man who 
can withstand his blandishments, and dares to stand face 
to face with him and tell him he has done wrong. 

So he comes here to San Marco, first as reader, after- 
wards as Prior of the Convent. This is in 1489. The 
angehcal painter has been dead these thirty years, and 
more. The good Archbishop, Antonino, has glided peace- 
fully out of the world, in 1459. A new generation of 
monks is occupying the cells which the one had painted, 
and the other sanctified by his presence. Neither is Flor- 
ence the same. Spell-bound under the sway of Lorenzo 
de Medici, it has lost at once its freedom and its religion. 
It is as near a pagan city as it is possible for its rulers to 
make it. Society was never more dissolute, more selfish, 
or utterly deprived of high aims, than now, — full of de- 
bauchery, corruption, cruelty, the violation of oaths, the 
betraying of trusts, caring for nothing but pleasure. Is it 
any wonder that Savonarola — he who has ever a burning 
indignation at the sight of wrong, who has a fervent behef 
in an unseen justice that will put an end to the wrong — is 



ONE BAY IN FLORENCE. 23 

it any wonder that his ardent, powerful nature is stirred to 
its utmost depths^ that he thunders from the pulpit and 
announces that the wicked shall be scourged. 

All the city flocks to hear him now. The Duomo is 
piled high with seats to accommodate the crowds. Some 
come to scoff, but many more to pray. Savonarola preaches 
incessantly, thundering with terrible vehemence against the 
sins and corruptions of both court and people, and threat- 
ening the most fearful penalties. In vain the Medici seek 
to propitiate him with gifts ; he will not hold his peace. 

In 1492 Lorenzo dies, and his son Peter is kicked out 
by the people, who can tolerate a strong tyrant, but not a 
weak one. Charles VIII of France comes sweeping down 
over the Alps to take possession of Naples, and Savonarola 
welcomes him as at once a deliverer and a scourge. He 
shall deliver the city ; he shall scourge the wicked. Charles 
is astonished to find himself a messenger of God, and Flor- 
ence considers itself well rid of him, at the end of ten days. 
But at least he has enabled it to keep the hated Peter at 
a distance. And this is Savonarola's opportunity. He 
becomes a political as well as a religious leader, vindicates 
the rights of the Republic against foreign aggressions, and 
gives the State a new constitution, partly theocratic and 
partly popular. '*If you wish to have a good government," 
he says, "it must be derived from God." And so he 
stands up in the Duomo, and proposes those laws which he 
feels come to him direct from heaven. In good time, in 
the full plenitude of democratic freedom, the Signory of 



24 FRATEBNITT PAPERS. 

eight, proposes them as if emanating from themselves, the 
Council of eighty discusses them, and then the Great 
Council, composed of some thousands of selected citizens, 
serving by turn, in three sections, silently votes upon 
them. Curious reversal of our parliamentary customs — 
the laws come down instead of going up, and the Great 
Council in which they are finally acted upon, has no voice, 
but only a vote. It may not discuss, but it may accept 
or reject. What a reformed Congress that would be in 
which this rule were enforced. 

To Savonarola this is the reign of God, and wise and 
noble laws are passed under it. He employs his power 
for no end but the benefit of the people. He has no 
thought of himself. He turns the Carnival, which has 
been a Saturnalia of license, into a holocaust of earthly 
vanities. He converts the stone-throwing gamins of 
the streets into white-robed messengers of reform, who -go 
about demanding the sacrifice of personal ornaments, of 
the women's false hair, of tapestries and brocades of immod- 
est design, of pictures and sculptures held too likely to in- 
cite vice, of dice and playing cards; perhaps some copies 
of the poets get thrown in, perhaps some precious w^orks 
of art — but Savonarola is no enemy of art, he wishes only 
to destroy all that is false, and evil, and impure. These 
are piled high in the great square of the Signoria, in 
front of the old Palace — a new sort of bonfire, — the burn- 
ing of vanities. 

This sort of rule goes on for two years. It could not 



ONE DAY IN FLORENCE. 25 

last longer. Such an heroic episode in history can but be 
brief. It is a reaction too extreme to endure. Evil is 
still strong in the world. The Florentines have not all be- 
come Puritans. The Medicians plot for the return of 
Peter. The dissolute nobles who hate the Medici, hate 
still more the Puritannic rule of Savonarola. There are 
scoffers among the people. Young Nicholas Machiavelli 
is already beginning to earn the infamous reputation which 
justly attaches to his name, by the clever wickedness of 
his talk. It is not anything that he does that makes this 
man detestable ; it is what he pronounces it right to do. 
He is the antithesis of Savonarola. The one speaks with 
the voice of God ; the other of the devil. The one pro- 
claims the decrees of Divine order, purity and right ; the 
other scientifically formulates the principles of evil. The 
one believes in an unseen Purity to which lying and un- 
cleanness are abominations ; the other sees no beauty in 
virtue, and recognizes no duty. The one is held by many 
to be an impostor and a cheat ; the other is esteemed as 
an honorable citizen. 

But worse than all, Rodrigo Borgia, a lustful, greedy, 
lying, and murderous old man, is Pope of Rome, head of 
the Christian Church. When this embodiment of evil 
hears of the preaching monk, he thinks to silence him with 
a Cardinal's hat. Savonarola replies, "I want no red hat, 
but one reddened by my own blood, the hat given to the 
saints." The astounded Pope can only mutter, "Let me 
hear no more of this man, good or bad." But Savonarola 



26 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

will be heard, and then the Pope forbids him to preach. 
Silenced, but not inactive, Savonarola is still a power, and 
the struggle between him and the Pope goes on for three 
years. Then comes the long threatened blow; the bolt of ex- 
communication is launched against him. Savonarola shuts 
himself up in his convent, but he cannot rest under this 
wrong. He is not a Luther to rise up against the author- 
ity of the church. But this man is not the true Pope at 
all ; he is a monstrous usurper and pretender, having no 
real authority over the consciences oF the faithful. Being 
a vicious unbeliever, elected by corruption and governing 
by simony, he is not rightfully Pope and should be deposed. 

Savonarola is capable of great enterprise ; he has far- 
reaching plans. He will bring about a General Council 
of the church, and overthrow this wicked Pope. To this 
end he writes letters to the king of France ; they are 
intercepted by his enemies and sent to Pope Alexander, 
and from this hour there is no help nor hope for him. 

He has still a circle of true followers, men of religious 
minds and pure hearts, but the mass are falling away 
from him. To a great multitude who have profited by his 
political wisdom, his prophetic threatenings are folly, his 
purity distasteful, his piety superstition. He is no longer 
a pohtical leader ; he is but the head of a religious party, 
the Piagnoiii, the Puritans. Spite of the Pope he 
preaches once more in the Duomo, and then, driven by 
the rising storm of opposition, he proposes the daring ex- 
periment of a solemn appeal to heaven. 



ONE DAY IN FLORENCE. 27 

In this very square of St. Mark, now so still in the 
summer sunshine, a strange spectacle is seen on a spring 
morning four hundred years ago. The square is filled 
with many thousands of men, through whom comes the 
procession of monks, surrounding their prophet. He is 
about to appeal to Heaven to attest his work. In the 
presence of the awed and silent multitude, he prays, 
"Lord, if I have not wrought in sincerity of soul, if my 
word Cometh not from thee, strike me in this moment 
with thy thunder, and let the fires of thy wrath enclose 
me. " The kneeling multitude pray with him, and 
then all are silent, as the prophet stands above them, his 
rugged and homely, but inspired countenance raised to 
heaven, his pyx in his hands. And no fire comes from 
the blue Italian sky — shining over them, in that serene 
calm of nature which stupifies with its tranquility the 
eager, restless soul, looking in vain for an answering and 
visible God. When the solemn half hour is done the 
prophet and his monks go back, chanting a Te Beum, to 
their cloister. 

But this is but a negative test. It proves nothing, but 
it gives his adversaries, the Franciscans, the opportunity to 
entrap him with a positive trial. It is easy to ask God to 
strike him, if false, with fire from heaven, but can he 
walk through the fire and come out unscathed? The 
Franciscans will put him to this test that, through its fail- 
ure, he may be delivered over to his enemies. 

It is not himself, however, who is at first challenged, but 



28 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

his devoted brother and retainer, Fra Domenico, a simple 
hero of unfaltering faith, who accepts the challenge with 
delighted eagerness. But Savonarola, with something of 
inconsistency, refuses this ordeal. Perhaps he sees it is but 
a trap ; at any rate he gives good reasons for declining it. 
He has too many great works in hand to lose his time in 
such miserable contests ; when his enemies have answered 
his arguments in respect to the excommunication, it will be 
time enough to prove its justice by fire. But his enemies 
will not listen, and even his own followers demand the test. 
Has he not prophecied, has he not promised miracles ; now 
let him be tried by the ordeal of fire. Fra Domenico never 
falters ; he will walk through the fire with the Franciscan, 
never doubting that he will come through unscathed. 

So with immense preparation, and great eagerness of the 
people, the ordeal by fire is appointed to take place on the 
7th of April, the Friday before Palm Sunday. Strange 
scene, even for the fifteenth century. On the one hand, 
scoffing unbelief in all things divine ; on the other unfal- 
tering faith that will walk through fire. All the city pours 
into the great Square of the Signoria on chat momentous 
morning. There it is — the same Square we see to-day, 
with the massive old Palace, the government Palace — old 
even then — looking down upon it, and opposite, the Loggia, 
or open Portico of Orcagna, now a gallery of Art, then, for 
the day, divided into two parts, and allotted to the rival 
convents, San Marco having one side, and the Franciscans 
the other. 



ONE DAT IN FLORENCE. 29 

The Square is alive with human beings, clinging to the 
very walls. The people are at last to be gratified with a 
miracle — or at least with a great and surpassing spectacle— 
perhaps the humiUation of the hated monk. His enemies 
are all there— five hundred of them armed, under the com- 
mand of Dolfo Spini, the leader of the Wicked Companions, 
the dissolute nobility who hate Savonarola. The Signory, 
too, who are also his enemies, have five hundred armed 
men to preserve order ; even Savonarola has his troops, 
three hundred armed Piagnoni, under the leadership of 
Salviati, pledged to protect their leader against his enemies. 

And now the people are impatient for the spectacle. 
There before their eyes is the long platform, eight feet 
broad and twenty yards long, heaped high on either side 
with dry fuel, through which the champions are to walk 
when all aflame. When will they appear ? Domenico, in 
his flame-colored cope, is at his post in the Loggia, kneel- 
ing before the altar awaiting his summons. But the Fran- 
ciscan champion remains within the old Palace, from which 
he does not mean to come out. He resorts to excuses and 
subterfuges. How does he know that Savonarola will not 
resort to magic. He finds fault with Domenico's flame- 
colored cope, and the stout-hearted monk at once throws it 
off; then with his Dominican habit, which may be enchanted 
against the fire, and he immediately exchanges that for the 
dress of another. So the day goes on in endless and vain 
struggle. 

The people grow impatient ; they are wearied with cling- 



30 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

ing to walls and pillars, thej are wet to the skin by a pass- 
ing thunder-storm. They do not understand the causes of 
delay. Why does not Savonarola go on with the ordeal ? 
There are taunts and scoffings. At last, as the day wanes, 
the Signory, finding it impossible to screw up their cham- 
pion to the sticking point, put a stop to the ordeal alto- 
gether, and send word to Savonarola to depart. He re- 
monstrates, but in vain. Then it is clearly seen that his 
enemies sought no other miracle than the death of Savon- 
arola. They are eager to seize him now that the disap- 
pointed rabble will be on their side. The Signory, for very 
shame, cannot refuse him the protection of their five hun- 
dred troops, and it is all they and the three hundred armed 
Piagnoni can do to protect him from the mob as the strange 
procession moves back to San Marco. The very Piagnoni 
are disappointed and down-hearted. The Wicked Com- 
panions are wild with the thought of losing their opportun- 
ity ; the baser multitude maddened by the loss of the ex- 
pected miracle, surge around the returning band like an 
angry sea. Even Savonarola's former friends join the cry. 
There is a great and terrible revulsion of feehng in Flor- 
ence. The prophet has fallen, fallen from his high estate. 
He who had once been king, and more than king, in Flor- 
ence, has been hooted through the streets and preserved 
with difficulty from the disappointed mob. 

What remains is a sad tale, to be briefly told. Next 
day San Marco is attacked by the mob. A fight goes on 
for a time. Savonarola surrenders himself to the Signory. 



ONE DAY IN FLORENCE. 31 

The Pope demands him as a sacrifice to his vengeance, 
but thrifty Florence drives a bargain with him for the priv- 
ilege of hanging and burning its own prophet on its own 
piazza. He is tortured, tried and condemned by two Papal 
Commissaries. And then in the same Square, in the pres- 
ence of the same crowd that had come to see him perform 
a miracle, he is stripped of his priestly robes, pronounced 
a heretic and a schismatic, hanged to a gibbet, and his 
body burned before the eyes of the multitude. 

Here is the very scene before us on the walls of his cell, 
a quaint old picture of the great fire, like an immense grid- 
iron, at the door of the old Palace, in the great Square. 
It is the same Palace we see to-day, yet how strange and 
far-away it seems, looking older than it now does, as if we 
were looking down the ages instead of up to their begin- 
ning. It was two hundred years old then ; it is six hun- 
dred years old now ; to recount the scenes it has witnessed 
would be to relate the historj'' of Florence. 

What shall we say of Savonarola, preacher, prophet and 
reformer ? That he was an ardent, power-loving soul, not 
untouched with fanaticism, but believing in great and good 
ends, and longing to achieve those ends by the exertion of 
his own strong will — a mind possessed by a never silent 
hunger after purity and simplicity, yet caught in a tangle 
of egotistic demands, and difficult outward conditions that 
made simplicity impossible. The one man that for three 
years had the courage to stand up against that impersona- 
tion of medieval crime and corruption. Pope Alexander 



32 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

Sixth, and who would have organized a general revolt 
against the corruption of his times. His reign in Florence 
was of too high purpose to be of long continuance, but so 
long as it lasted, immorality and luxury were out of fashion, 
the vileness which calls itself pleasure was paralyzed, and 
immodesty and impurity scared into corners out of sight. 
The Millenium itself must have arrived had that great 
voice continued dominant, as it was for a time. Power 
rose against him, not because of his sins, not because of 
his greatness, not because he sought to deceive the world, 
but because he sought to make it noble. 

The guide moves on, and the curtain falls on Savonarola. 
But there are other great memories, it seems, preserved in 
San Marco. We come next to a long, narrow, sunken 
chamber, into which we descend by a flight of stairs lead- 
ing down from the door opening into it. The high walls 
on both sides are draped with banners, splendid banners 
of heavy silk, superb in colors, with long fringes of gold 
depending from them. They line the walls like tapestry. 
At the far end of the hall, looking down between these 
two lines of banners, is a bust. It is that of Dante Aligh- 
ieri, and these are the banners borne by the representa- 
tives of the cities of Italy on the occasion of the celebra- 
tion of the sixth centennial anniversary of his birthday, in 
the year 1865. Having served their purpose in the grand 
procession they were presented to the city of Florence, 
and are here preserved in the national museum of St. 
Mark. Thus three great names of Florence are brought 
together in this historical building. 



ONE DAT IN FLORENCE. 33 

The name of Dante carries us back two centuries earlier 
than San Marco itself. It is six hundred years since he 
walked the earth, a wanderer and an exile, in the evil days 
of Guelphs and Ghibelhnes. Florence was then in the 
throes of that fierce struggle of the Papacy with the empire, 
which while it gave the ItaUan cities a quasi-independence 
armed them against each other. Nay, more, divided the 
citizens of each into factions habituated to rancorous party 
strife involving exile and proscription. The bare idea of 
genuine Uberty never entered into a society where power 
was only desired as an instrument of oppression, and where 
commonwealths and individuals alike regarded license to 
slay or prosecute as the highest prerogative of authority. 

The early annals of Florence, like those of all her sister 
municipaUties, are written in blood, for the first vivifying 
spirit that animated these little political units was an in- 
stinct of mutual destruction. The internecine war revealed 
by the microscope among the denizens of a drop of water, 
is not more unreasoning and ferocious than the series of 
reciprocal aggressions with which the Italian repubhcs 
made their debut in history. There was not even a con- 
ception of such a thing as national life, much less of na- 
tional unity. The desire of all parties was to organize 
anarchy, in which they could pursue the small local inter- 
ests of the separate towns to the sacrifice of any care for 
the common good of Italy. 

It is the glory of Dante that his far-reaching vision went 
out beyond all this disorder, and rested on the idea of a 



34 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

comprehensive and ordevlj political system. His treatise 
on Monarchy is a cry for political unity, for a common 
union for the common good, for orderly subordination to 
righteous laws. ''0 miserable race of men," he says, "by 
how many storms and shipwrecks, by how many destruc- 
tions must you be overwhelmed, while like a many-headed 
monster you pull in different ways. Behold how good and 
joyful a thing it is, brethren, to dwell together in unity." 

How slow are the movements of society. How long it 
has taken Italy to see this good, foretold by her great poet, 
who was prophet as well. Six centuries have rolled away, 
and it is only to-day that we see Italy united, and the long 
warring cities come together, as parts of a great whole, to 
do homage to his memory by hanging these banners on the 
wall. They testify to his desire for a national union which 
is at last accomplished. 

Dante fell a victim to the factions of his time. There 
is something very pitiful in his long exile. We can 
scarcely conceive the hardship of it. To be driven out 
from his native city was to become an outcast and a 
wanderer, among alien peoples, having nothing in common 
with him, with no career possible to him, a supplicant at 
the courts of petty princes who could not even grasp his 
ideas of national unity, sunk as they were in petty 
schemes for their own aggrandizement. Yet, that Dante 
preserved his independent spirit through all this misery is 
seen in that noble letter in which he refuses the unsener- 
ous offer of a recall to Florence, if he would submit to a 



ONE DAY IN FLORENCE. 35 

short imprisonment and do public penance, "This is no 
way of return to my country. If Florence cannot be 
entered in an honorable way I will never enter it. What, 
are not the sun and the stars to be seen in every land? 
Shall I not be able in every part of heaven to meditate 
sweet truth, unless I first make myself inglorious, nay, 
ignominious to my people and my country ? Bread at 
least will never fail me." 

True to this noble resolve, Dante never saw fair Flor- 
ence again, and died in exile. We lament his hard fate, 
yet doubtless all the world has been the gainer by it. 
Dante in Florence would no doubt have become a great 
name in Florentine literature ; but he never would have 
written the Divine Comedy. It was adversity that 
brought him face to face with the realities of things ; from 
the furnace of afilictions his beliefs and thoughts came out 
refined and purified. The Divine Comedy was the work 
of the last years of his life, after he had enjoyed, and 
labored, and suffered and thought. Into it he put not 
only the mystery of the world's being, but his own life, 
taking up into himself the world that then was, and re- 
producing it with such cosmopolitan truth to human 
nature, and to his own individuality, as to reduce all 
contemporary history to a mere comment on his vision. 
It is real with the realism of his age ; it is symbolical with 
a symbolism all its own, it is at once the apotheosis of 
woman, and the mirror of the middle ages. 

We went out from San Marco feeling that we had been 



36 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

communing with a past still living in the present. The 
poet, the painter, and the preacher, still live in Florence. 
History seems nowhere so vivid as in this city, where the 
stones of the old palaces testify with mute eloquence to the 
scenes they have witnessed, where every street has a mem- 
ory, and every house is a monument. Even the Ponte 
Vecchio, the old bridge, the jeweller's bridge, across which 
runs the covered gallery connecting the Ufizzi Gallery on 
one side of the Arno with the Pitti Palace on the other, 
has its story to tell, so well interpreted by our own poet 
Longfellow : 

"Thaddeo Gaddi built me. I am old, 
Five centuries old. I plant my foot of stone 
Upon the Arno, as St. Michael's own 
Was planted on the dragon. Fold by fold 
Beneath me, as it struggles, I behold 
Its glistening scales. Twice has it overthrown 
My kindred and my comjianions. Me alone 
It moveth not, but is by me controlled. 
I can remember when the Medici 
Were driven from Florence; longer still ago 
The final wars of Ghibelline and Guelph. 
Florence adorns me with her jewelry. 
And when 1 think that Michael Angelo 
Hath leaned on me I glory in myself." 

The whole city glories in Michael Angelo and to-day he 
is a living presence there. How is the fact thus kept 
alive, great memories preserved, great deeds commemor- 
ated, and ever held in mind as examples to be emulated by 
the generation of to-day ? By the all pervading influence 
of art. Everywhere in public squares, in Loggias and 
niches stand the statues of the mighty dead ; everywhere 
their monuments are built, everywhere their portraits hang 
upon the wall. The boys in the streets know them ; their 
memory is ever present. 



THE BUILDING OF THE HOUSE. 



I have oftened wondered why some poet has not done 
for the house what Longfellow has done for the ship. 
The latter is undoubtedly the more picturesque object of 
the two, and has larger suggestions of possible perils and 
adventures, but how much more closely is the former 
associated with all the events of human life,— 

"Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears!" • 

How many hopes go with the laying of the foundation 
stones ; how many plans for the future rise with the walls ; 
what tastes and ambitions are gratified in the stately 
structure ; what thoughts of festivity, of hospitahty, of 
family ties, of long years of happy life cluster around it. 
How the bright recollections of childhood go back to the 
early home in the clouded years of after life. Many can 
say with Tom Hood — 



'I remember, I remember, 

The house where I was born, 
The little window where the sun 

Came peeping in at morn: 
He never came a wink too soon, 

Nor brought too long a day; 
But now I often wish the night 

Had borne my breath away." 



38 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

What tender thoughts are associated with the rooms in 
which our children have been born, in which we ha^e 
seen them married and go out from us into the world, and 
in which some loved one has passed awaj. Longfellow 
himself tells us that — 

"All houses wherein men have lived and died 
Are haunted houses. Through the open door 
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide, 
With feet that make no sound upon the floor." 

We go back to the homes of our youth with large recol- 
lections of their size and splendor, born of childish wonder 
and inexperience of the world, and are disappointed to 
find them so small and mean. Is this narrow flight the 
grand staircase down which we rode on the rail, and are 
those contracted rooms the apartments which to our young 
eyes seemed so grand and spacious. This is not the 
house we knew when life was young ; it has fallen from 
its high estate, but in our recollections it still lives with all 
the glamour of youth about it. So does our budding life 
glorify the house. 

When inquiry was made of the ancient dame who occu- 
pies a portion of the old mansion, still standing at the 
foot of Hancock street, in the city of Portland, if that 
was the house in which Longfellow was born, she replied, 
"0 yes, Mr. Longfellow has been here and walked 
through all the rooms." Doubtless as the poet looked 
around upon those once familiar apartments his own lines 
came to mind : — 



THE BUILDING OF THE HOUSE. 39 

•'The stranger at my fireside cannot see 

The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear; 
He but perceives what is; while unto me 
All that has been is visible and clear." 

He remembered the old house in all its glory, but alas ! 
the old house had forgotten him. The occupant of the 
shop in the basement, when the same inquiry was put to 
him, replied, "Who the devil is Longfellow ? " 

It is perhaps the saddest thing about the house that 
it comes to know us no more forever. We build for 
those who come after us, and the stranger improves what 
we have planned. The house outlasts many generations, 
but none but the builder, who has put into it a part of his 
life, can truly call it his. The later comers 

" — have no title deeds to house or lands; 

Owners and occupants of earlier dates, 
From graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands, 

And hold in mortmain still their old estates." 

There is a human interest in the biography of an old 
house. It is the story of generations which "come like 
shadows, so depart ;" of famihes which burgeoned and 
blossomed, and filled the old rooms with life and laughter, 
and grew up to maturity and strength, and spread wide 
their branches, and struck their roots deep into the soil, and 
seemed to hold possession forevermore, and then fell away 
limb by limb, and were shattered by the blasts of adversity, 
and sank into forgetfulness and sheer oblivion, and w^ere 
succeeded by others who know them not, who in their turn 
flourished and decayed, and were alike forgotten. Can we 



40 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

wonder that men believe in haunted houses ! Can so much 
life have come and gone and left no impress here ? 

"Impalpable impressions on the air, 

A sense of something moving to and fro?" 

If the departed ever do return to earthly scenes, to what 
spot would they be so attracted as to that around which 
has centered all their ties of home ? 

And yet, — and yet — perhaps, with the old shell of the 
body they cast off all earthly ties, and out-worn associations, 
and soar to wider realms and brighter mansions. Its our 
fond hearts that people their old homes with shades of the 
departed. 

There is something pathetic in the story of an old house 
whose glory has departed, that has survived all its great- 
ness, sunk into dilapidation and decay, a melancholy wreck, 
emblematic of the fallen fortunes of its once proud occu- 
pants. 

Think of the stately mansion that not long after the close 
of the Revolution rose on the banks of the St. George's 
river, -in Thomaston. See the hearty and hospitable Gen. 
Knox, bringing thither his aristocratic lady, and setting up 
his house-keeping in great state. What stories are told of 
the grand style of living in vogue at the mansion ! Twenty 
sheep consumed in a week ; oxen roasted whole before the 
immense fire-places ; twenty saddle-horses in the stable ; 
the whole tribe of Penobscot Indians feasting on the Gen- 
eral's bounty for weeks together ; distinguished foreigners 
entertained as «i;uests, and all the hi«i;h life and extra va- 



THE BUILDING OF THE U'OUSE, 41 

gant outlay of prosperous years. And then the inevitable 
reverse of the picture ; the failure of unconsidered enter- 
prises, the slipping away, Httle by little, of the great estate, 
and the hero of so many battle-fields dying at last from 
swallowing a chicken-bone. His proud lady survives to see 
the fickleness of fortune, and then is laid by her husband's 
side. 

In 1837 "Montpelier" is a "ruinous old mansion, with 
some grandeur of architecture," occupied by the youngest 
daughter of Gen. Knox, who contrives to keep up the family 
pride on six hundred a year. In 1854 the last child of 
Knox dies, and the heirs sell the house and furniture by 
auction. The relics of family greatness are dispersed 
among families of the town, and the mansion is left to neg- 
lect and decay. In 1860 it is a tenement house, occupied 
by the families of ship-builders, and is fast crumbling into 
ruins. The piazzas are gone, the balconies have disappear- 
ed, the American eagle which once guarded the entrance 
to the spacious grounds has folded his wings and fallen from 
his perch; the entrance itself has become a street, hned 
with rows of houses, the front yard, which sloped green to 
the water's edge, has been transformed from a smooth lawn 
into a ship-yard, filled with piles of timber and the noise of 
busy workmen. A few years later the tumbling mansion 
is abandoned by its tenants. The large oval reception 
room where Louis Phillippe, Talleyrand and other distin- 
guished guests had been welcomed, is a carpenter's shop. 
An air of sadness pervades the rooms where once thronged 



42 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

brilliant assemblies. Up and down tbe long wide stair-cases 
troop shadows of the past. It is like "some banquet hall 
deserted." Then comes, last scene of all, the great lev 
eller of the age, and what is left of Montpelier is pulled 
down to make way for the Knox and Lincoln Railroad and 
the farm-house is converted into a station-house. Thus the 
shrill whistle of the engine drowns the voices of the past. 
The building instinct is strong in man, and of early de- 
velopment. Little children hollow out houses in the sand, 
and build castles of blocks and stones. What boy has not 
labored hard and long at the construction of a bower in the 
woods, or a shanty in the back-yard — so great a joy while 
in the building, so useless and unsatisfying when completed. 
My boy has constructed a castle in the corner of the fence. 
the nails and pounded thumbs that have gone into the 
making of it. Its greatest triumph and treasure is a fire- 
place of his own invention. Said he to me with great 
fervor, "the idea came into my mind when I was in school 
and I could'nt rest until I got free." lie rushed home. 
A dozen bricks and three sections of drain-pipe, all happily 
lying to his hand, and there were your fii'c-place and your 
chimney. The thing was done — the happy thought was 
realized. But alas ! there is a draw-back to every earthly 
bliss, and now his greatest sorrow is that his mother won't 
let him build a lire in this triumph of inventive genius ! 
"What is home without a mother ?" What is a house with- 
out a fire? Do not all the household gods hover around the 
hearth-stone — or rather, did they not before they were ban- 
ished by the introduction of stoves and furnaces ? 



THE BUILDING OF THE HOUSE. 43 

Every young man comes to a time when he has thoughts 
of makmg himself a home. The building of the house be- 
comes then a matter of all-absorbing interest to him — es- 
pecially when there is another to share it with him. It is 
a fine thing to see the young man and .maiden planning 
their future home. I once saw this going on opposite my 
own door. The young man was w^isely building his house 
before his marriage that it might be ready on the wedding 
day. As the walls went up, and the floors were laid, and 
the enclosed space began to take the shape of habitable 
rooms, his interest in the work grew too strong to be un- 
shared. He brought the dainty maiden, all smiles and 
blushes, to see the realization of their hopes and plans. It 
was like a poem to see these two turtle doves building their 
nest. At last the walls were up, the roof was on, the plumb- 
ing was done, and then came a rainy day. Then the young 
man saw the first movement of the machinery of household 
life. The rain fell upon the roof, it was gathered by the 
conductors, it ran through the pipes, it dashed into the cis- 
tern. What music to his ears ! The home was actually in 
runnins order. It was too o;reat a consummation to be 
enjoyed unshared. He rushed away in the rain. Pres- 
ently we saw him returning with his betrothed, umbrellaed 
and waterproofed, and together they enjoyed the delight- 
ful spectacle of the rain, gathered upon their own roof, 
running into their own cistern. The young man is now a 
portly citizen ; the fair maiden is a blooming matron ; they 
have outgrown the early home, and have built a larger and 



44 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

a fairer mansion, but I doubt if any of their after experi- 
ences of the joys of domestic hfe has given them a purer 
pleasure than that first realization of the building of the 
house. 

The building instinct in woman concerns itself chiefly 
with ornamentation and the details of household convenien- 
ces. Man builds the house but woman gives it the charm 
of home. Her taste beautifies and adorns it, placing a pic- 
ture here, a bracket there, harmonizing colors, and so ar- 
ranging furniture as to make it most effective. And then 
there is no end to the closets she can contrive, the conven- 
iences she demands. Her feminine ingenuity is at times su- 
perior to masculine planning. I once knew a lady whose 
new house pleased her well with the single exception that 
it had no back stairs. She must have back stairs. But 
the architect declared that the plan did not admit of them, 
there was no space for them in the place where she wanted 
them. She insisted, he protested. She seized the plans, 
set her woman's wits at work, and through turns and around 
angles, in unconsidered scraps of space, contrived her 
staircase, without altering the original plan. The archi- 
tect owned himself beaten at his own trade. 

In some men the instinct of building runs to seed. It is 
ever propagating itself, ever renewing without completing. 
This is a trait of the nomadic Yankee, ever on the move. 
He builds a house — or rather throws together a quantity of 
boards and timbers — moves in, and the next morning puts 
up a notice on the outer gate-post, "This house for sale.'* 



THE BUILDING OF THE HOUSE. 45 

He never settles down, but is always building and moving. 
As the existence of ante-diluvial animals is revealed by 
their fossilized foot-prints on the ancient sea-beaches, so 
the lives of some men may be traced by the houses they 
have built. 

I knew a man whose business it was to build houses, but 
who was never content to let a new one go out of his hands 
without first inhabiting it himself — as though a tailor should 
insist on wearing for a week or two every new coat he made 
before parting with it to a customer. The habit was hard 
on his wife. She had no sooner got one house well broken 
in than another was thrown on her hands. She bore up 
bravely for a long time, but excess of novelty is as weari- 
some as too much monotony, and at 4ast the poor woman 
succumbed — she died of too much new house. 

Everything enters into the planning of a house — all the 
needs of humanity, all the wants of a family, all the con- 
veniences of life, all the improvements of the age, all the 
demands of health, refinement and luxury. But most men 
build their houses first and plan them afterwards. Houses 
so built are ever assuming new forms — an L thrown out 
here, a bay-window there, the underpinning raised, a story 
added, a new French roof clapped on, one room divided 
into two, two rooms knocked into one, a wardrobe here 
and a closet there, until the old house no longer knows 
itself, and is a wonder to all who knew it. Where there 
was no plan at first no consistent plan can come from alter- 
ations, but it is still worse where an original plan is thrown 
into confusion by after adaptation to other uses. 



46 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

The worst instance of this kind I ever saw was in the 
hotel at Stresa, on Lake Maggiore. It had been a mon- 
astery built around a central court yard, which was open 
to the heavens. But to meet the increasing demands of 
tourists the thrifty proprietors had built up in this inner 
space a labyrinth of rooms in the intricate passages be- 
tween which one was in danger of being as much immured 
and lost to the world, as were the monks who inhabited the 
original edifice. An Englishman who knew the building 
in its first estate, and was attracted to it by its quaint, old- 
time arrangement, and the novelty of inhabiting a former 
abode of monks, told me that on returning to it after the 
alterations were made, he found the charm was gone. 

A well planned house should meet the needs of all man's 
forces and faculties, physical, social, mental and moral. 
The law of correspondences here comes into play. Con- 
trivances for ventilation answer to the needs of the lungs, 
the kitchen to the demands of the digestive organs, the 
living room to the family ties, the parlor to social inter- 
course, the library to the intellectual faculties, the cham- 
ber to the privacy, meditation and devotion which enter 
into all well-ordered lives, and the attic to the recollec- 
tions, associations and relics of the past. But how dispro- 
portioned are the parts of most houses one sees. Some 
are all kitchen, where perpetual roasting and baking and 
gormandizing go on, and everything is subordinated to the 
grosser needs of the flesh. Others starve the kitchen that 
the parlors may shine. In others again social life is sac- 



THE BUILDING OF THE HOUSE, 47 

rificed to the preservation of formal neatness and order, 
and the parlor becomes the abode of gloom, rather than of 
life and sociability. In many the library is reduced to a 
shelf, and the mind is starved that the body may be gor- 
geously apparelled, while in a few instances intellect runs 
away with the house, as in the case of Rufus Choate, whose 
library overflowed its apartments, invading parlor, sitting- 
room, and stairway, prevailing over all housewifely remon- 
strances, filling the whole house, crowding the owner out 
of it into his grave. 

Henry Cavendish, the eccentric English philosopher, 
furnishes another instance of overgrown intellectuality, but 
he managed better than Choate. When his library 
crowded him out of one house he took another. He 
lived in London in one street, and had another house in 
another street devoted exclusively to his books. 

It is well man cannot develop on all sides to this enor- 
mous extent. Fancy a being possessed not only of Choate's 
ravenous brain, but a stomach of equal capacity, a social 
nature as importunate in its demands, a meditative mood 
as all-absorbing, each in turn demanding gratification, and 
compelling the building of a separate house for each, 
while the dismembered individuality has nowhere to dwell, 
turned out of house and home by an overplus of both ! 

In some climates, as in our Southern States, the house is 
a thing of fragments, the main part consisting only of parlors 
and sleeping-rooms, the dining room being a detached build- 
ing, the kitchen a separate structure beyond, the wash-room 



48 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

another still farther on, the spring-house and the well-room 
each standing by itself, and the servants' quarters still 
more remote. All very charming in fine weather, but not 
so romantic on a rainy day, when one must don water- 
proof and rubbers to go to the table. This scatteration of 
the house destroys its unity, and with that goes much of 
its comfort and convenience. 

The ideal house is comprised under one roof, and, cor- 
responding to a well-balanced physical and mental con- 
stitution, is disproportioned or defective in none of its parts. 
It does not even omit the attic. I have no sympathy with 
those modern houses which aie finished off to the very 
roof, and leave no lumber room as a limbo for all out-worn 
things. As every well constructed mind has a corner 
reserved apart for the recollections of the past, the associ- 
ations of childhood, memories of old famihar faces, and 
tender thoughts of departed joys, so every house should 
have its garret as a haven of refuge for the belongings 
which fall behind us as we journey on in life — a place for 
rummaging, for the finding of treasures of the past, old 
heirlooms, forgotten documents, remembrances of other 
days, family relics, letters of lost friendships, and out- 
worn articles which come to new uses in these later days. 

In the preservation of historic lore and family records 
how much the garrets of old houses have done for us all. 
Dusty, of course, but what is dust but the bloom of years, 
shaken from the wings of time ; cobwebbed, too, but what 
are cobwebs but the curtains of forgetfulness ? One such 



THE BUILDING OF THE HOUSE. 49 

attic I remember, the grandfather of all garrets. "Come," 
said mj friend, the Professor, with whom I was examining 
the treasures of the Essex Institute, in Salem, "let us go 
up into the Doctor's Den." So we ascended a long steep 
flight of stairs until we found ourselves in the attic of the 
building, and in the midst of a most rare collection of 
what may be called the raw material of history. It was 
a place to delight the heart of the mousing antiquary or 
compiler. There, ranged on the beams, and on a great 
drum-like structure in the center, were piles upon piles of 
old newspaper files, extending far back into the last cen- 
tury. Volumes, bound and unbound, heaps of pamphlets, 
piles of old directories — on the floor, high overhead, and 
extending into dim vistas of remote and dusty recesses. 
The records of how many forgotten deeds and eventful 
lives were there stored away, awaiting the reviving touch 
of romancer and poet ! 

Houses have recognizable types, like the different races 
of men. It is the houses more than the people that gives 
the general aspect to a locality. The buildings are the 
"larger inhabitants" and impress us more. Entering a 
strange city, we take our first, and perhaps most lasting 
impression of it from its houses. We know Boston by its 
swell fronts, New York by its brown stone, Philadelphia by 
its white marble and Portland by its detached mansions 
and extensive gardens. Each region has a distinctive char- 
acter in its dwellings, and this is heightened where the cus- 
tom prevails, — as it does more generally in Europe than 



50 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

in this country, — of building with the material under the 
feet of the inhabitants — the native rock. 

Landing in the north of Ireland I was struck with the 
building material used in the little town of Portrush, the 
rock in place, even the black trap rock of the Giant's 
Causeway, near at hand, entering into the ornamentation 
of churches. Crossing to England I found in the vicinity 
of Chester that the prevailing building stone was the soft 
red sandstone of the region, which in the Cathedral and the 
ancient church of St. John had been literally gnawed away 
by the tooth of time, great cavities eaten into it, until it 
has become a thing of rags and tatters. Going north into 
the lake region I found the buildings constructed of the 
cold gray slate of the neighborhood, with the edges in some 
instances projecting beyond the mortar, thus giving the 
walls the appearance of a pile of loose stones. So each 
district had its distinct style of building. 

In Maine we have scarcely begun to make use of the 
building material aftbrded by our native stone. I have 
seen but one distinctively Maine house. That is a man- 
sion at Brownville, Piscata(|uis County, in the region of 
slate quarries. It is not only shingled, but clapboarded 
with slate. It is a slate edifice, and so far fire-proof and 
comparatively indestructible. The slates are put on to the 
boarding of the walls w^ith only paper between. They are 
in the form of segments of a circle, overlapping each other, 
and have a very ornamental effect. The natural color of 
the slate is pleasing to the eye, and no paint is needed. 



THE BUILDING OF THE HOUSE. 51 

The whole establishment is elegant in appearance, and 
shows what can be done with native materials. The front 
steps are of beautiful slabs of slate ; the sinks, mantles, 
shelves, are of slate ; the woodwork is of brown ash, a 
native wood, which takes a handsome finish. 

But houses have not only distinctive types ; they have 
individuahty of character. As every man puts a part of 
himself into whatever he builds, it comes about that every 
house has a character of its own. Some dwellings you 
like at first sight, while there are others for which you can 
never get a friendly feeling. There are the square old 
mansions telling of the flush times of 1800 ; they have a 
hearty, substantial, solid aspect, which remind you of the 
jolly old sea captains and portly merchants of those days. 
There are other consumptive looking dwellings, thin in the 
shoulders, ill-proportioned, indicating some latent defect of 
character which prevents your getting on good terms with 
them. Some are a positive offence in their deformity or 
their want of harmony of color. 

Some houses get a bad name, and then it is all over with 
them. It clings like a stain on a man's character. The 
house has fever in it, or they say it is haunted, and 
then it comes to stand apart like a thing of evil. Pres- 
ently the windows are broken in some mysterious way, no- 
body knows when or how. The very stones seem to fly of 
themselves against such pariahs and outcasts. There are 
some houses so deformed, so slouching, so desperate look- 
ing, that one would go a mile round to avoid a glimpse of 



52 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

them. They seem ready for anything that is bad ; as if, 
when dark comes, they might shift their ground, and go in 
search of villainy if it did not come to them. There are 
others which are repulsive from their squalidness and low, 
disreputable ways. They seem to take kindly to dirt and 
dissipation. There is a house which as long ago as I can 
remember was known as the "Every-day House," because 
some wretched family was perpetually movmg in or out. It 
has always been an offence to decency, not so much from 
positive vice, as for its squalor and sheer wretchedness. 
Many changes have occurred around it, but there it stands 
to-day as disgusting as ever, dirty, dilapidated, shiftless 
and impudent, like a sturdy beggar by the roadside, with 
pipe in mouth, displaying his sores to the public gaze. 

Why should landlords be permitted to keep such houses 
standing, in all their wretchedness, perpetuating an offence 
against good morals ! Think of the influence for evil which 
the mere aspect of such a house must have exerted during 
the past half century ? Think of what might be done for 
the good of society, if all houses, including the habitations 
of even the devil's poor, could be well-built^ tastefully 
painted, and interiorly arranged with a due regard to the 
health and convenience of the occupants. The immorality 
of society is seen in its habitations. 

It is a relief to turn to dwellings of another class. 
There are some houses that are positively jolly ; that 
laugh at you out of their windows, that hospitably invite 
you in at their open door. Some squat little structures 



THE BUILDING OF THE HOUSE. ^ 53 

are really droll, and seem to wink at you In a comical way. 
Then there are your eminently staid and respectable, 
church-going houses, with a pious aspect in the closed 
blinds, the latched gate and the well-swept path. One 
sees occasionally a modest little mansion that seems to be 
the home of industry and contentment, and then again 
there is your pretentious house which thrusts out its bay- 
windows at you, and spreads itself on the public way. The 
physiognomy of houses, indeed, is as varied as that of 
humanity. 

I abominate all houses that present their gable ends to 
the street, and I don't care who knows it. In the city, 
where men of moderate means can seldom command more 
than thirty or forty feet front, there may be a shadow of 
excuse for elongating the house, and thrusting it in end- 
wise hke a wedge. But when a man has a spacious lot, 
when he goes into the suburbs and buys himself a garden 
spot, and then proceeds to erect a slab-sided structure, pre- 
senting a narrow gable end to the road, with the rooms 
running off one behind the other, like a string of sausages, 
there can be no justification of such folly. An honest 
house should face the world, and not stand peeping over 
its shoulder. One of those structures which are all sides, 
and no front, is but a slice of a house ; every wind blows 
through it, and it is a pity every wind wouldn't blow it 
over. Such a house presents no life to the street; the 
blinds are closed and the front door seldom opened. The 
family Hves in the rear end of the house, and the front par- 



54 g FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

lor, which with the hall occupies the whole width of the 
gable-end, only shows signs of animation on great company 
occasions. Now one owes something to the public, and 
every house that has life in it should contribute to the 
pleasure of the passer-by. Consider the difference in the 
aspect of a street, say half a mile in length, all the houses 
on which present their gable-ends to the road, and are con- 
sequently closed and dismal, and another street of the 
same length the houses on which front the road, and give 
evidences of life and hospitaUty, smiling out upon the 
world with plants in the windows, and cheerful lights, in the 
evening hours. 

The house, like everything else, is a result of evolution. 
It would afford an interesting study if one could take his 
stand on some height above the stream of time,. and sweep 
at a glance over the habitations of men in all ages and all 
countries, observing how the main features of construction 
have been determined by a consideration of habits, exe- 
gencies of climate and situation, the nature of materials 
and the means of execution at the command of the build- 
ers. It would be seen that every style is best where it 
originated, and out of place elsewhere, unless the conditions 
are the same. Yet it would also be seen that emigrating 
races, like the snail, have carried their houses with them, 
reproducing them in distant lands under varying conditions. 
We should see habitations, in widely different lands, built in 
the same manner, by branches of the same race, separated 
long ages ago. The Aryan tribes can trace their houses 



THE BUILDING OF THE HOUSE. 55 

like their languages to a common origin. The chalets of 
Switzerland are precisely like the dwellings on the slopes 
of the Himalayas and vale of Cashmere. The high-pitched 
roofs of Northern climes, built as if to shed the snow, are 
in striking contrast to the flat roofs of semi-tropical regions, 
constructed so as to afford an airy retreat from heated 
apartments. In Venice, where there is no land for gardens, 
every man sits under his own vine and fig-tree on the roof 
of his own house, a ledge twenty or thirty feet in length, 
lined with trees and plants in pots affording him an airing 
at the sunset hour. 

The origin of races may be traced in the style of their 
architecture, and the history of man might be written from 
an inspection of his dwellings in all ages. This outer gar- 
ment of humanity which has covered it in all climes, taken 
shape from its needs, and, in reciprocal action, given direc- 
tion to its habits and its moralities, finds its primitive type 
in the subterranean cave. 

Man at first nestled in the bosom of his mother Earth. 
The Troglodytes were the infants of the race. When, 
by the survival of the fittest, man evolved himself out of 
his native cave, his first attempt at architecture doubtless 
took the form of huts composed of branches of trees inter- 
woven with grass. The Aryan race next achieved the log 
hut, which was succeeded by a habitation of stone. Com- 
ing down from the mountains into the plains we find the 
light, convenient bamboo houses of the Chinese, the low, 
wide, turtle-like tents of the Mongolian Tartars, the reed 



56 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

habitations of the primitive Egyptians, and also their rock 
dwelHngs hollowed out of the natural ledge. Then come 
the two-storied tents, covered with woolen stuffs, of the 
Aryans in the desert, the tents made of skins of beasts, 
the Median houses of trunks of trees, placed vertically 
with forked branches for posts ; the cone-like houses of the 
Pelasgi, constructed of branches of trees covered with 
reeds or twigs ; the stone-roofed houses of Syria, still 
standing desolate in the deserted villages of the centuries ; 
the light pavilions of Cathay, with copper roofs ; the lake 
buildings built for safety in the edge of the water, and 
found alike in Switzerland and in Burmah ; the Esqui- 
maux house of snow, hollowed out of the very element 
which makes a house imperative, and having the advantage 
over all other dwellings that it performs its own spring- 
cleaning, melting away when from the accumulation of filth 
it is no longer habitable ; the Mexican communal houses, 
which the Spaniards mistook for palaces ; the tree dwel- 
lings of Venezuela, the low stone houses of the Peruvians, 
covered with earth or branches of trees, and the wigwams 
of the North American Indians. From the various types 
of these primitive dwellings were evolved the palaces of 
Assyria, the gorgeous Hindoo palaces, and the feudal cas- 
tles of medieval Europe, with keep and donjon, perched 
on some impregnable cliff. 

Most of these ancient habitations have passed away like 
the generations of men who inhabited them. The Roman 
house has been preserved for us by the volcanic energy 



THjy BUILDING OF THE HOUSE. 57 

which is so often an element of destruction. In uncovered 
Pompeii we see it as it existed in a later stage of Roman 
civilization when the family life of earlier times had been 
succeeded by the celibate life of a period in which mar- 
riage had fallen into contempt. So perfect in the old Ro- 
man world was the harmony between man and his habita- 
tion that the house was a true architectural expression of 
character. Striking differences may be seen between an- 
cient and modern domestic architecture, corresponding to 
similar differences in manners and customs. While the 
modern house looks out upon the road, and aims at out- 
ward display and ornament, the Roman house turned its 
back upon the street, and looked inward. It was built 
around a central court, partially open to the sky, and 
enclosed within its walls the arbors, ponds, fountains, and 
flower-beds, with which we surround our houses. These 
were of course on a very small scale, as were all the 
domestic "arrangements. We moderns like to have a good 
prospect from our houses, a pleasant outlook from our 
windows, and a chance to see the passers-by. On the 
other hand, the rooms of the Roman house, being lighted 
for the most part from the open court, presented few or no 
windows to the street, which became a mere pathway, lined 
with two blank walls. This style of house gave great 
privacy of domestic life, for the reason that the social life 
of the people was all in public. The sleeping rooms were 
mere closets because the Pompeiian gentlemen on arising 
went to the public baths to perform his ablutions. The 



58 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

houses contained no spacious apartments, but the amphithe- 
ater of the little citj of twenty or thirty thousand inhabi- 
tants would seat ten thousand people. The spacious forum 
was the public assembly room and the theaters, and basilica, 
or hall of justice, were the common resorts of the people. 
They did not meet in each other's houses, but in these pub- 
lic places, designed for amusement, for gossip, and the 
transaction of business. The same thing is seen to-day in 
Venice, where, of a summer evening, the people flock from 
their narrow contracted homes, to the space and freedom, 
the music, ices and conversation of the great square of St. 
Mark, which thus becomes the public assembly room of the 
city. 

To the Roman architecture succeeded the Gothic. The 
•first added only the arch to that which had gone before ; 
the latter was a combination of all the old forms, Egyp- 
tian, Grecian and Roman, and found its highest expression 
in the house of God. It is exceedingly interesting to trace 
the development of the medieval cathedral from the ancient 
basilica or hall of justice. The Grecian and Roman tem- 
ples, being designed only for the habitation of the gods 
and the priests, were too small for the purposes of Chris- 
tian worship. So the new religionists, Avhen they came 
into power, seized upon the court-houses, — spacious, oblong 
structures, designed for the accommodation of the people, 
who then, as now, flocked to the trial of a case of murder 
or divorce — and converted them into churches, though we 
do not read that the lawyers became high priests of the 



THE BUILDING OF THE HOUSE. 59 

new religion. The elevated tribunal of the judge became 
an apsis, gradually extended to a choir, to accommodate 
the numerous priests and singers. At first the ceiling was 
low and the arches semi-circular resting on heavy pillars, 
like those of the Norman style which we see in the chapel 
in the Tower of London. The pillars were short, the tow- 
ers heavy, the windows narrow and deep, giving a general 
effect of gloom, a reminiscence of the catacombs in the 
days of persecution. But as the Popes became triumphant, 
and the power of the church increased, so did the house of 
God lift its head in splendid and lofty aspiration. The 
low ceilino; became vaulted, the semi-circular arches became 
lofty and pointed, the short heavy columns stretched up in 
high and graceful clusters, rose windows appeared, and 
stained glass, and lofty spires. No longer was the church 
mournful, but varied, gay and jubilant, symbolical of a tri- 
umphant religion. .And as this religion absorbed all the 
art and all the higher life of the people, so there entered 
into the cathedral everything in life, in nature, in art, 
until it became not only the consummate flower of Chris- 
tian architecture, but the condensed expression of human 
nature in its levity as well as its solemnity, as seen in the 
grotesque heads of gargogles, the grinning figures which 
look down upon you from the Avails of choirs, and the fid- 
dler on the highest pinnacle of York Minster. 

The development of the house in this country has been 
of comparatively slow growth. It is only a strong and 
aggressive race that can impress itself upon a new conti- 



60 FRATEBNJTT PAPERS. 

nent, and rise superior to the conditions which it finds there. 
The Spaniard in South America has sunk nearly to the 
condition of the native race, and his habitation, except in 
the cities is that of the aborigines. The Mexican peasant 
dwells in a thatched shed, with a floor of beaten earth, sim- 
ilar to those in which the Aztecs and Toltecs dwelt before 
them. The Frenchman gained a foothold in Canada onlj by 
fraternizing with the Indians and living pretty much as they 
lived. Our English ancestors who settled on the coast of 
Maine were for a long time mere adventurers, pioneers with 
no assurance of a permanent home here. They found the 
land not only an impenetrable wilderness, but inhabited by 
a race by no means wanting in intelligence and courage, 
whom it was not easy to supplant and impossible to convert 
to the wajs of civilization. What wonder then that for a 
time the event hung in the balance, and it was by no means 
certain that the white man, instead of impressing his civili- 
zation on the land, would not himself adopt the habits and 
customs of the Indians. A great many did so, and be- 
came strongly attached to the Indian mode of life. Many 
of those who were captured by the savages refused to re- 
turn, when they might, to the habitude and customs of civ- 
ilization. 

Under these circumstances it is not surprising that for a 
long time the house of the settler did not afford much 
better shelter than the wigwam of the savage. It was 
built of logs, cemented by clay. It was very, small, con- 
taining at the most, but two or three rooms. It had a 



THE BUILDING OF THE HOUSE. 61 

large fire-place, but no glazed windows. Its furnishing 
was of the simplest sort. We have an inventory, in Bourne's 
History of Wells and Kennebunk, of the household fur- 
niture of some of the principal men of the town. A table, 
a pewter pot, a hanger, a little mortar, a dripping-pan, and 
a skillet ; no crockery, tin, or glass ware ; no knives, forks, 
or spoons ; not a chair to sit in. Another gives a kettle, 
a pot and pot hooks, a pair of tongs, a pail and a pitcher, 
and in the chamber a bed and bedding, and some trifling 
articles worth about fifty cents. And this is the house of 
Nicholas Cole, one of the Selectmen — for many years the 
manager of town lands, constable, and acting in various 
public offices. The Indian in his wigwam had about as 
many appliances for cooking, eating and sleeping, as had 
these representatives of civilized society. An iron pot 
was the one grand article for household equipment. Such 
a legacy in a will was regarded as a great benefaction. 
A clam shell in a split stick answered the purpose of a 
spoon. But there were no knives with which to carve the 
pork of which they consumed an immense amount. They 
had no looking-glasses and no conveniences for performing 
their ablutions. One considerable citizen was rich in the 
possession of a looking-glass and a carpet, but had no 
chairs. The beds were made of cat-o'-nine-tails, and the 
pitch-knot served for the evening light. 

This state of things continued for more than a hundred 
years after the first settlement was made. As late as 1748 
the assessed value of the houses in Kennebunk was but 



(32 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

twenty dollars each, and there was not a house in the town 
that had a square of glass in it, all being lighted by block 
windows only. As late as 1798 Rev. Caleb Bradley, jour- 
neying from Dracut, writes in his diary of Mr. Little, of 
Kennebunk, that "he has one of the most beautiful minis- 
terial situations I ever saw ; a very convenient house ;" 
and yet, says Bourne, "this house of Mr. Little was a very 
ordinary building, without symmetry, painted red; and 
yet this worthy man from Dracut speaks of it as the most 
beautiful establishment he had ever seen, thereby clearly 
suo;o;estino; the fact that in all the towns through which he 
had passed but little progress had been made in the style 
and architecture of houses." 

The people in those days were content with very hum- 
ble accommodations. Many of them thought more of the 
house of God than of their own, and would deny them- 
selves comforts for an honorable seat in it. The house of 
one citizen who died in 1779 was appraised at thirty-three 
dollars, while his pew in the charch was valued at sixty- 
seven. 

It was not until the flush times of 1800, when the coun- 
try had recovered from the exhaustion of a seven years' 
war, and the wars of Napoleon had given our ships the 
carrying trade of the world, that our people felt them- 
selves able to build larger and better. Then arose those 
stately mansions of which a few well-preserved specimens 
still remain ; mansions with large square rooms, with wide 
halls running through from front to rear, opening out into 



THE BUILDING OF TUB HOUSE. (33 

high fenced gardens. They had no modern miprovements, 
no furnaces, no gas, no Sebago, but they had wide fire- 
places, roaring fires, a free circulation of air, and the pump 
stood handy at the back-door. If they had not the con- 
veniences of modern mansions they escaped some of their 
dangers. 

For the house of to-day everything is provided ready 
made ; the old-time mansion was the scene of diverse indus- 
tries. Our domestic manufactures took their rise in the 
household. Here was spun and woven the cloth which the 
family wore ; here candles were run, and soap was made, 
and carpets were manufactured ; hither came, once a year, 
the busheler to do the family mending and making, and 
the circulating cobbler to manufacture the one pair of shoes 
annually allowed to each member of the family. How 
changed is all this ! Through the sub-division of labor, and 
the growth of manufactures, all things are made to hand, 
and the house has largely ceased to be a scene of industry. 
Yet so great and complicated have become the require- 
ments of domestic life that the labors of the household are 
scarcely lessened, and the burden of the housewife's cry is 
— " Help, help !" 

The house of to-day is a thing of transition and experi- 
ment. We run riot in architecture and adopt all styles 
save one of our own. We have no end of modern improve- 
ments, but scarce one of them is perfected. They subject 
us to annoyances and dangers which largely detract from 
their convenience. In the endeavor to shut out all dis- 



64 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

comfort, we have shut m disease and death. The cheer- 
ful open fire has given place to a dismal hole in the floor, 
which is nearly as apt to give forth deadly gases as com- 
forting warmth. The old-fashioned patriotism that was 
ready to strike for its altars and its fires is in danger of 
dying out. Strike for your stoves and your furnaces ! 
Not I ! Our houses are brilliantly lighted, but with explo- 
sive elements not yet brought into safe control. Water 
flows freely in all the rooms except when the pipes freeze 
or burst. We have a system of sewers, and they bring 
death into our kitchens and bed-chambers. We have got 
rid of filth by covering it up under our noses. The old- 
fashioned sink-spout that discharged upon the surface of 
the ground was not an agreeable object, but at least it was 
open to the winds of heaven which bore away its noxious 
odors. Now our drains are systematically ventilated into 
our kitchens ; we have excluded the sight and preserved 
the smell. We heat every room in the house, — and our 
houses burn down over our heads, at the rate of two or 
three per day. Last year the loss by fires in Maine was 
a million and a half of dollars, — not in great conflagra- 
tions, but mostly in the destruction of scattered buildings, 
and of the dwelling-houses the greater part were burned 
through faulty construction, defective flues, and a lack of 
those brick arches and walls which in Italy render it impos- 
sible for a fire to spread beyond the apartment in which it 
orimnates. We have made so little advance in the art of 
building that, not to speak of the construction of fire-proof 



THE BUILDING OF THE HOUSE. 65 

dwellings, we scarcely build a house which does not itself 
invite the flames and provide for their spreading when once 
ahght. Great part of each year's accumulated wealth is 
dissipated in smoke and flames and the burden of insur- 
ance rests heavily on the community. Our public build- 
ings even— our State-houses, court-houses, public halls, 
school-houses, churches, jails, asylums, are not constructed 
in accordance with the simplest requirements of hygiene. 
The lungs and blood of legislators are mysteriously poi- 
soned ; a crowded court-room is little better than the Black 
Hole of Calcutta, and the children in our school-houses 
are frequently ruined in health for Ufe by a total disregard 
of the most elementary sanitary principles in the warming 
and ventilation of school-rooms. In short, the house of 
to-day is in an inchoate condition ; its boasted improve- 
ments are simply begun and are far from completion. 

This brings us to the consideration of the house of the 
future, and of this it may be briefly said that its require- 
ments are— the free admission of sunhght into bed- rooms 
and living-rooms ; the toning down of colors on both outer 
and inner walls to prevent the injurious efl:ect of a glare on 
the eyes ; a perfect system of ventilation ; the construc- 
tion of water closets and drains on a system which shall 
render them as nearly as possible odorless ; the construc- 
tion of ceilings and staircases of such materials that they 
may be as nearly as possible fire-proof; the adaptation of 
durable materials and the simplifying the interior finish so 
as to secure complete cleanliness in apartments, halls, and 



6Q FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

stairways, without great waste of time and labor on the 
part of those employed in keeping the house in order. 

The methods of attaining these conditions are well mapped 
out in Dr. Benjamin Ward Richardson's "Hjgeia — a Citj 
of Health." Here we have the ideal house of the future, 
built on principles of sanitary architecture. In the first 
place the walls are built of a glazed brick quite impermeable 
to water, and so perforated transversely as to allow the cir- 
culation of a constant body of air, let in by side openings 
in the outer wall, which air can be changed at pleasure, 
and if required, can be heated from the fire-grates of the 
house. The inside walls of the rooms are also of brick, 
glazed in difl:erent colors, according to the taste of the 
owner, and laid so neatly that the after adornment of the 
w^alls is considered unnecessary, and, indeed objectionable. 
By this means those most unhealthy parts of household 
accommodations, layers of mouldy paste and size, layers of 
poisonous paper, or layers of absorbing color stuft' or dis- 
temper, are entirely done away with, and the walls can be 
made clean at any time by the simple use of water. Then 
the cellar, that fertile source of disease, is abolished. 
There is not permitted to be one room underground. The 
Hving part of every house begins on the level of the street. 
The house is built on arched subways, affording great con- 
venience for conveying sewage from, and for conducting 
water and gas into the domicile. All pipes are conveyed 
along the subways and enter the house from beneath, thus 
giving easy access to them in case of leakage. The sew- 



THE BUILDING OF THE HOUSE. 67 

ers of the house run along the floors of the subways, and 
are built of bricks ; they are trapped for each house, and 
as the water supply is continuous, they are kept well 
flushed. The sewers are ventilated into tall shafts from 
the mains by means of a pneumatic engine. The water- 
closets are situated on the middle and basement floors, 
and the continuous water supply flushes them without dan- 
ger of charging the drinking water with gases emanatmg 
from the closet ; a danger so imminent in the method of 
cisterns, which supply drinking as well as flushing water. 
The chimneys are so constructed that the smoke passes 
through a gas furnace to destroy the free carbon, and is 
discharged colorless into the open air. The roof is level, 
covered with asphalt or flat tile, barricaded round with 
iron palisades, or covered with glass, so that there may be 
a garden on the top (»f each house. The kitchen is re- 
moved from the basement and placed immediately beneath 
this garden roof, on the upper floor of the house instead of 
the lower. By this means all odors from the preparation 
of food are kept out of the living rooms, and the convey- 
ance of hot water to the bed-rooms is made much easier ; 
the dust bin shaft, open to the air from the roof, has a slid- 
ing door opening into it on each floor to receive the dust, 
and extends to the bin under the basement of the house. 
A basket lift conveys articles of food and fuel from the 
entrance hall up to the kitchen. The bed-rooms are thor- 
oughly lighted, roomy, and ventilated. The staircase in- 
stead of being in the center of the house is a distinct shaft 



(58 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

at the back. The coal bin is off the scullery, and is ven- 
tilated into the air through a separate shaft, which also 
passes into the roof. The warming and ventilation of the 
house is carried out on a simple plan, which does not sacri- 
fice the cheerfulness of the fireside. There is still the 
open grate in every room, but at the back of the fire-stove 
there is an air-box or case, which, distinct from the chim- 
ney, communicates by an opening Avith the outer air, and 
by another opening with the room. Such a house is com- 
plete within itself, has no need of cellars or back premises, 
lets in air and light in abundance, and yet shuts out all 
that is injurious to health. It is, of course, beyond pres- 
ent reach, but something similar may be hoped for in the 
future. 

Indeed, without an undue indulgence of fancy we may 
go even further than Dr. Richardson in eliminating from 
the house what still remains of domestic processes. Wa- 
ter and light are already supplied from common reservoirs ; 
why not fire and food ? Each district of a city may have 
its separate steam apparatus from which mains may run to 
every house, and the occupants will have only to turn a 
faucet and let on the heat. What an escape from the ex- 
asperating stove pipe and the wood and coal nuisances ! 
The kitchen must go next. Why not have a great central 
cookery from which meals may be sent as ordered, by sub- 
terranean railways to the basement of each house, and there 
lifted by elevators to the dining room ! No more baking, 
no more setting the table, no more washing dishes, no more 



THE BUILDING OF THE HOUSE. 69 

Bridget. The laundry goes of course, with the kitchen, 
and washing-day, when we all know "there is no comfort in 
the house," is forever abolished. Already the telephone 
carries speech from every man's house to that of his friend 
or neighbor. It will soon be possible to turn on the elec- 
tricity with the same facility with which we now turn on the 
water or the gas. 

Consider now the difference between getting up of a win- 
ter morning in the house of the past, or the present, and 
the abode of the future. In the first case there were the 
ashes to be raked open, with the thermometer at zero, and 
if no lingering spark remained, fire was to be lighted with 
flint and steel, the benumbed fingers fumbling about the tin- 
der box in the dim light of the cold gray morning. The 
green wood at last sputtering and snapping, there was then 
water to be brought from the icy well or the frozen pump^ 
there was wood to be split, and no end of chores to be done, 
and when breakfast was at last achieved one could at least 
say that it had been well earned. 

In the house of to-day we rise to look after the furnace, 
to sift ashes, to administer coal, to find the water pipes out 
of order, and to scold Bridget for spoiling the coffee, or 
overdoing the steak. 

In the house of the future all these annoyances disap- 
pear. No more morning chores. The heat is turned on, 
breakfast comes in ready cooked, and with it the newspa- 
per and we discuss the morning news, by telephone, with 
Jones over the way or Smith down the street. 



70 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

A great moral question now arises. What is to be the 
influence of the house of the future on the coming man ? 
Will it conduce to his elevation, or will he become corrupt- 
ed bj its ease and luxury? There are those who believe 
that human progress travels in a circle so that the highest 
civilization ends in barbarism. Freed from the every-day 
cares and duties of domestic life, the annoyances and frets 
of the household machinery, left in serene repose to the 
contemplation of the higher problems of life, will man sink 
into effeminacy and lose the robust virtues of the days of 
tinder-box and tallow candles ? Forbid it, Heaven ! No, 
with his perfected domicile man will enter upon a new 
stage of development. Old things will be cast aside, and 
all things will become new. Out-worn professions, made 
necessary only by the imperfect conditions of human exist- 
ence, will be cast aside with the discarded household im- 
plements of modern times. Perfect health being restored 
and established by the new sanitary conditions of the house, 
the medical profession will disappear with the flint and 
steel of other days. Sound health and freedom from do- 
mestic annoyances will work such perfect rectitude that the 
lawyer's occupation will be gone, and the legal profession 
will become as obsolete as the household bellows. Where 
there are no doctors nor lawyers there can be no need of 
the clergy, for there will be few dead to bury or sinners to 
save. 

Then will the newspaper, freed from the necessity of 
recording the evil deeds of men, become the great teacher 



THE BUILDING OF THE HOUSE. 71 

of the age, through which will be diffused all knowledge, 
all literature, all that is pure and of good report ; and the 
journalist will take his rightful position as the acknowledged 
"guide, philosopher and friend" of all mankind. Thus, 
through the perfected house, will mankind enter upon the 
millenium ! 



HUMORS OF DIALECT. 



Speech is the natural concomitant of human nature. It 
is the necessary result of the constitution of man — and 
especially of woman. It is an emanation from the common 
soul of humanity, through the organs of the body, grows 
with its growth, expands with' its intellect, multiphes with 
its surroundings — in short is but the outward expression of 
man's inward consciousness. Adam in the garden of Eden, 
took to speech as naturally as ducklings take to water, and 
when he named the animal kingdom he merely gave ex- 
pression to the impressions which the prominent attributes 
of each animal made upon his mind. Eve fell into a flir- 
tation with Satan simply from the want of somebody else 
to talk with — which shows how dangerous it is for married 
men to neglect conversation with their wives. Language 
being thus a thing of growth, springing spontaneously from 
the ground of human nature, it follows that the speech of 
the common people must have the native flavor of the soil 
in which it has its origin. Thus we find in the speech of 
the people, of whatever race, a vigor of life, a raciness of 
idiom, an aptness and originality, a picturesqueness of ex- 



HUMORS OF DIALECT. 73 

pression, which we look for in vain in the language of 
refined society. Nor is its coarseness always vulgarity ; it 
is but the strength of the fibre which shows the vigor of its 
growth. 

As a language becomes literate it grows pedantic and for- 
eign ; as it is refined it fades into a pale reflection of its native 
strength. The euphuist is the effeminate dandy of speech. 
"I saw the blood run down the face," said a peasant de- 
scribing a murder. How much more vivid an impression 
does this produce upon the mind than the language of the 
fastidious gentleman who said, "A sanguinary stream flow- 
ed across his countenance." The strength of every lan- 
guage lies in the dialects in which it has its roots, the racy 
vernacular idiom smacking of the soil. It has been well 
said that "no language after it has faded into diction, none 
that cannot suck up the feeding juices secreted for it in the 
rich mother earth of common folks, can bring forth a 
sound and lusty book." Pilgrim's Progress is immortal 
because it was written in the dialect of the people. A 
fastidious gentleman once translated it into elegant English, 
but his work was spewed out of the mouths even of refin- 
ed society. Our version of the Holy Scriptures maintains 
its position because of its idiomatic English. We shrink 
with a sense of sacrilege from a bible written in choice 
diction. What portion of any work of fiction do we read 
with the greatest relish ? Always the idiomatic dialogue — 
the dialect of the Cockney, the Scotchman, the Irishman, 
the Yankee, or the negro. When Topsy says, in account- 



74 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

ing for her origin, "I specs I growed," the humor is as 
much in the form of expression as the thought. The 
charm of Sir Walter Scott's novels lies in his spontaneous 
and instructive use of the Scotch dialect — though to be 
sure we have all heard of the young lady who said she 
had read all the Waverley novels — skipping the Scotch. 
What would even Burns' poetry be without the flavor of his 
native speech ? He contrived to write very poor verse and 
prose in English. How could Lowell have given such 
point to his satire without employing the Yankee dialect of 
which he is so great a master ? 

Wit, being but the flash of intellect, may be expressed in 
polished language, but humor, which is of the heart, and 
has the native flavor of character, seeks utterance in the 
dialect of the people, and much of it lies in the very form 
of the words employed. A Yankee giving an account of 
a combat between a woman and a goat said, "she had him 
by the horns, but was afeard to hold on, and dars'ent let 
go. I see 'twas a hurrying time 'o year with 'em, so I 
shut up my jacknife, and put it in my pocket, and then 
went and separated the critters." 

Here the ludicrous exaggeration of applying to the strug- 
gles of the woman and the goat, the characteristic expres- 
sion of the Yankee farmer for the busy season of the year, 
gives unconscious humor to the narrative. 

That poetry is best which has the simplest form of ex- 
pression, and partakes of the vigor and heartiness of spoken 
dialect. "Vulgarisms," says Lowell, "are often poetry in 



HUMORS OF DIALECT. 75 

the egg." Just because of its limitations the speech of 
the common people is full of metaphor's. When the Yan- 
kee speaks of a ''steep price," or says he "froze" to a 
thing, or calls a skunk "an essence-peddler," or accuses a 
neighbor of being "mean enough to steal acorns from a 
blind hog," or sajs of a stuck-up old maid that she is "as 
cold as the' north side of a Jenooary gravestone by star- 
light," or declares himself to be "as hungry as a graven 
image," or tells you he'll "thrash you quicker'n greased 
lightning," or describes a penurious person as "stingy 
enough to skim his milk at both eends," or after drinking 
a glass of soda water for the first time says it "tastes like 
sweetened wind," he is unconsciously exercising the poetic 
faculty, and using his vernacular idiom just as Shakespeare 
used EngHsh. 

The English language is a stream flowing from many 
sources. It has been enlarged and enriched by numerous 
affluents, but it has its headwaters in the dialects of the 
Anglo-Saxon speech. Of the many millions of English 
speaking people only a few hundred thousands, at most, 
employ what may be called the bookish form of the lan- 
guage. The vast majority use only some one of its many 
dialects. In these, the popular idioms, racy with life and 
vigor and originality, lies the strength of the written speech. 
As Lowell has said, "It is only from its roots in the living 
generations of men that a language can be reinforced with 
fresh vigor for its needs." It dies in books and is buried 
in dictionaries. 



76 FBATEENITT PAPERS. 

The Scotch contend that their speech is by no means a 
dialect or corruption of English, but most decidedly a 
national language, having its roots, like the Enghsh, in the 
Teutonic, and flowing on for centuries by its side, a par- 
allel tongue. For the present purpose it is not necessary 
to discuss this question, though it may be remarked that 
whether a branch dialect or a distinct language, the Scotch 
is an affluent of English, flowing into it, and assimilating 
with it. What I purpose to deal with now is its idiomatic 
strength, and especially its adaptation to the purposes of 
poetry and humor. It is a dialect rich in apt words and 
peculiar turns of expressions, a racy and picturesque 
tongue, with a phraseology exactly fitted to express the 
character of the people who speak it. It is as much Scotch 
as the Scotchman himself, because it is a part of himself, 
native to the soil. 

Language is expressive of character, and changes with 
it ; as a people grow more polished and conventional, their 
language becomes less marked and peculiar in its expres- 
sion — an observation emphatically true of the Scotch lan- 
guage, which, as the people who speak it assimilate with 
the English, loses its raciness and humor. It is richer in 
literature than any other dialect known to the English 
speaking world. The works of Ramsay, Ferguson, Burns 
and ScOtt attest its wealth of expression. They are full 
of passages of great power, which would lose their charm 
altogether were they imscottified. 

What a wealth of affection may be expressed in its 



HUMOBS OF DIALECT. 77 

diminutievs, in which it is so much richer than the muscu- 
lar and sibilant English. An Englishman may speak in 
praise of "a pretty little girl," but a Scotchman sings of 
"a bonnie wee lassie." The former may invent pet names 
for his wife and children, but the latter can run through 
the sliding scale of tvife, wifie, ivifikie^ and hairn, bairnie, 
and hairnikie. How beautifully adapted this is to the pur- 
poses of poetry we may see in the song of Burns — 

"She is a winsome wee tiling, 
Slie is a handsome wee thing, 
She is a bonnie wee thing. 

This sweet wee wife o' mine." 

The euphuist may speak in polished phrase of a diminu- 
tive animal of the canine species, but a Scotchman will 
tell you of "a wee bit doggiekie." This diminutive form 
is capable of giving great expression to contempt as well 
as to endearment. A diminutive specimen of humanity 
may be spoken of in English as "a very small man," but 
how far short of the extreme of littleness does this fall in 
comparison with "a peerie wee bit o' a manikinie." 

By its dropping of consonants the Scotch becomes almost 
as soft as the Italian. The English, like the Teutonic, 
bristles with them, but the Scotch is spangled with vowels 
as a meadow with dandelions in the month of June. It 
has words, too, of tenderness and pathos, which have no 
equivalent in English. What phrase so expressive of old 
familiar places, — old companions, pleasures and pursuits — 
the long past which we recall with melancholy pleasure, as 
the Scotchman's "Auld Lang Syne." 



78 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

"And here's a hand, my trusty fiere, 

And gie's a hand o' thine ; 
And we'll take a right guid-willie waught, 
For auld lang syne." 

This is untranslateable, but speaks straight to the heart. 
Who that has heard Dempster sing "Duncan Gray" will 
ever forget the sweetness and humor of Scottish song ? 
And for the delineation of humble matrimonial happiness 
and affection where is the song that equals that of "The 
Mariner's Wife," written by the poet Mickle, to express 
the joyous agitation of the sailor's wife when' she hears 
that the ship is in sight, and her husband has arrived safe 
home from his long voyage. 

"But are ye sure the news is true? 

And are ye sure he's weel? 
Is this a time to tliink o' wark? 
Ye jauds, fling bye your wheel, 

For there's nae luck about the house, 

There's nae luck at a', 
There's nae luck about the house 
"When our gude man's awa. 

"Is this a time to think o' wark, 

When Colin's at the door? 
Kax down my cloak — I'll to the key, 
And see him come ashore. 

"Rise up and mak a clean fireside, 
Put on the mickle pot; 
Gie little Kate her cotton gown , 
And Jock his Sunday's coat. 

"And mak their shoon as black as slaes. 
Their stockins white as snaw ; 
It's a' to pleasure our gudeman — 
He likes to see them braw. 

"There are twa hens into the crib, 

Hae fed this month and mair, 
Mak haste and thraw their necks about 
That Colin weel may fare. 



HirjMORS OF DIALECT. 79 

"My Turkey slii-pers I'll put on, 

My stockins pearl blue— 
Ifs a' to pleasure our gucleman, 
For he's baitli leal and true. 

"Sae sweet his voice, sae smooth his tongue; 
His breath's like caller air; 
His very fit has music in't, 
As he comes up the stair." 

*'And will I see his face again? . 

And will I hear him speak? 
I'm downright dizzy with the thought : 
In troth I'm like to greet." 

-, The characteristics of Scotch humor are perhaps best 
expressed by its own untranslatable word jjawky, which 
means sly, wise, witty, cautious, discreet and insinuating, 
all in one.* It is dry, caustic, sparing of words, uncon- 
scious in manner, as if it slipped out unaware?, and much 
of its charm lies in the quaint and picturesque modes of 
expressing it.. It is the Scottishness that gives the zest. 
Good Dean Ramsay, in his most amusing "Reminiscences 
of Scottish Life and Character," takes particular pains to 
say "if my anecdotes should occasionally excite amuse- 
ment, or even laughter, there is no harm done ; but remem- 
ber, this is not the ohjecV' This is worthy of a true 
Scotchman, who, while he is saying the most humorous 
things, preserves a discreet and sober air, and would not 
have you think he intends to be funny though all the while 
there may be seen — 

"A wise 

Surmise 

Peeping from the twinkle at the corner of his eyes." 



80 FRATEBNITY PAPERS. 

Do jou suppose that old laird, of the hard drinking 
school, had no consciousness of humor, when affecting great 
indignation at the charge brought agai-nst hard drinking, 
that it had actually killed people, he said, "Na, na, I never 
knew onybody killed wi' drinking, but I hae kend some 
that deed in the training !" 

And was the humor wholly unconscious in the reply of 
the Highlander, who, having been present when a lawyer, 
disappointed at not meeting his noble client at the appointed 
time, gave vent to his indignation by a most elaborate 
course of swearing, on being asked, ''But whom did he 
swear at?" "Ou, he didna swear at onything parteecular, 
but just stude in ta middle of ta road and swocg* at lairge." 

Or agatn the naive remark of that sister, who speaking 
of her brother as much addicted to swearing said — "Our 
John sweers awfu', and we try to cori-ect him ; but, nae 
doubt it is a great set aff to conversation." 

The old servant of the choleric Colonel Erskine, who 
in his fits of anger was wont to swear terribly, had even 
greater faith in the virtue of an oath. Having on one 
occasion greatly displeased his master, the ColoneFs wrath 
became quite uncontrollable, his utterance was choked, 
and his countenance became pale as death. The servant 
grew uneasy, and at last said, "Eh, sir! maybe an oath 
would relieve ye !" 

Whether this unconsciousness of humor is assumed or 
not, there is no lack of keen and conscious wit in Scotch 
lassies, whatever may be said of the laddies. "Is't a lad- 



HUMORS OF DIALECT. 81 

die or a lassie?" said the old gardener to the nursery maid 
out for an airing with the baby. "A laddie." "Weel, 
I'm glad o' that, for there's ower mony women in the 
world." "Hech, sir," said Jess, "Dis ye no ken there's 
aye maist sawn o' the best crap?" 

"Weel, Jenny, haven't I been unco ceevil ?" said a 
rustic bridegroom to his bride, on the day of his marriage, 
alluding to the fact that during their whole courtship he 
had never even given her a kiss. Jenny's (juiet reply 
was, "Ou, ay, man ; senselessly ceevil." 

She was probably much of the mind of one of those 
Montrose sisters, who in giving her little dinner parties 
was very desirous that there should be at least one gen- 
tleman in the company. This was not always attainable, 
and her sister, who did not see the same necessity, quietly 
said Avhen discussing the matter, "But, indeed, oor Jean 
thinks a man a perfect salvation." 

Of the humor that lies simply in expression Dean Ram- 
say gives a fine example in the exclamation of the Fife 
lass who upon first observing the brilliant comet then visi- 
ble in the sky, ran breathlessly into the house, calling to 
her fellow servants — "Come oot, come oot, and see a new 
star that hasna got its tail cuttit aif yet." 

Mr. Mair, a Scotch minister who was rather quick tem- 
pered, and occasionally had a little tiff] with his wife, was 
accustomed to make frequent entries in his diary like this 
— "Becky and I had a rippet, for which I desire to be 
humble." A gentleman was relating this to the wife of 



82 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

another Scotch mmister, when the good lady said — " Weel, 
weel, he must be an excellent man, that Mr. Mair. My 
husband and I sometimes have rippets, but deil tak me if 
he^s ever humbie." 

Of the caustic quality of Scotch humor we have a good 
example in the reply of the farmer to the young minister, 
who dining with the farmer after service, thought it neces- 
sary to apologize for his appetite by saying, ''You see, I'm 
always very hungry after preaching." The old gentleman, 
not much admiring the youth's pulpit ministrations, sar- 
castically replied, "Indeed, sir, I'm no surprised at it, 
considering the trash that came aff your stomach in the 
morning." 

Scotch thrift and quaintness of expression are well illus- 
trated in an anecdote told of a worthy Scotch dame, and 
notable housewife, who was one of our early settlers, and 
whose descendants rank among our most respected citi- 
zens. Finding a poor little drowned mouse one day in 
her pan of cream, she took the intruder up by the tail, 
coated as he was with the thick cream, and exclaiming, 
"Ye darg, ye ; ye broot naething in, and ye shall carry 
naething oot," stripped him down to the very nose. 

Dining once with a Scotch gentleman in Montreal, when 
another Scotchman from Chicago was at the table, the 
latter was saying that he had taken out naturalization 
papers and intended to become an American citizen. The 
Montreal Scotchman demurred at this, saying he could 
never give up his nationality. The Chicago man replied 



HUMORS OF DIALECT. 83 

that in the transaction of" business it was much more con- 
venient to be a citizen. '-Ah," said the Montreal gentle- 
man, dropping for the moment into his native dialect, "ye're 
a Scotchman, and I thought ye'd make it a matter o' 
hmvhees.^^ 

I once witnessed a ludicrous street scene to which the 
quaint inquiry of a Scotchman gave an exceedingly humor- 
ous effect. Walking in the streets of Montreal I met a 
woman bowed down beneath a most extraordinary burden. 
It was a bag borne upon her shoulders — and such a bag ! 
It was of monstrous proportions, and its contents, what- 
ever they might be, seemed to be struggling to protrude 
themselves at every possible angle. You saw more of the 
bag than of the woman, and it was hardly possible to 
escape the conviction that instead of carrying it, some bri- 
arian monster within it, had seized her and was bearing 
her away. While I was speculating on the contents of this 
mysterious bag, a. little dried up old Scotchman^ dressed 
in knee-breeches and long stockings, and carrying a cane 
in his hand, suddenly confronted the woman, and leaning 
upon his cane, said with an air of amazed authority: 

"In the name o' God, what hae ye in the bag ?" 

''Stove-pipes r^ piped the woman. 

It has been said that Scotchmen have no appreciation 
of wit, and Sidney Smith declares that it requires a surgi- 
cal operation to get a joke well into a Scotchman's head. 
If the reverend wit had heard a story told me by a Scotch- 
man whom I met in Nova Scotia he might have felt called 



84 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

upon to modify his sweeping assertion. The gentleman 
was telhng us of the mineralogical collection in the Divin- 
ity School at Wolfville. "There is an old professor of 
Theology, there," he said, "who will show it you. He 
knows nothing about the stones, but he is prodigious on 
theology. Don't let him entrap you into an argument on 
election or free Avill, for if you do you will never hear any- 
thing more of the cabinet. Some years ago a party of 
professors and students belonging to the Divinity School 
set out with two Gaspereaux boatmen to visit Cape Blomi- 
don for the purpose of gathering mineralogical specimens. 
Owing to some accident the boat was capsized and all of 
the party, with the exception of one of the boatmen, were 
drowned. The old Professor wrote an account of the acci- 
dent for the denominational paper, and after giving all the 
particulars of the lamentable occurrence he wound up with 
these words—" Thus perished six i^recious souls and a man 
from Gaspereaux P^ 

An Englishman engaged in hunting in the Highlands of 
Scotland lost his way, and wandered long in an uninhabit- 
ed region. Night fell, a Scotch mist shut down, shrouding 
every object in gloom. At last weary, wet and disconso- 
late, he spied a dim light in the distance, and approaching 
it found that it proceeded from an isolated hut. Knocking 
loud and long at the door he gained no response. At last 
in desperation he cried out, "For God's sake are there no 
Christians in this country?" "Na, na," said an old woman, 
thrusting her head from an upper window, "there are na 
Christeeans here ; we're ahl McGreggors." 



HUMOES OF DIALECT. 85 

The dialects spoken in England are as numerous as the 
races that have helped to people the island. Where Celts, 
Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Danes and Normans may be num- 
bered among the ancestors of the people, great diversity 
of spoken language is to be expected, especially if no sys- 
tem of common schools and common text-books has been 
introduced. The English dialects are more rude and boor- 
ish, and lack the raciness of the Scotch. There is little 
wit or sense of wit in a Dorsetshire or Somersetshire peas- 
ant, yet the English peasantry are not entirely destitute 
of a sense of humor. The Lancashire dialect, notwith- 
standing its broad vowels and drawling style, is anything 
but unmusical in the mouth of a genuine native, and is 
well adapted to express the broadly humorous. The na- 
tives of that locality are, many of them, full of ready, dry 
humor, and naturally see the funny side of things first. 

"Aw, say," said a stalwart peasant, to a party of gen- 
tlemen whom he met in a Lancashire public house, and 
who had been very learnedly discussing their geological 
investigations, "Aw, say, con yo' tell me how heigh Adam 
wur?" The gentleman addressed had never felt sufficient 
interest in our first parent to be so far inquisitive, but to 
hear what was coming he replied, Yankee fashion, "Why?" 

"Becos me an' another chap had an argiment, an' he 
swore as how Adam wur forty yards heigh." 

"Well," said the gentleman, that's a doubtful question ; 
some say he was forty-one." 

"Ah, but this chap wrote to the editor o't London 



86 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

Toimes, an' he sent -word as they couldn't tell Adam's 
height, becos there wur nobody theer for t'' measure himP^ 

It has been said that we have no dialects in America, 
but this is far from being true Though it may in justice 
be claimed that the great mass of the people of the United 
States speak and write their vernacular with more correct- 
ness than the common people of Great Britain, yet it 
remains true that there are certain generic dialectical dif- 
ferences which characterize the great divisions of the coun- 
try. The New Englander, the Southerner, and the West- 
ern man have each their vernacular speech. The first 
English settlers, coming from different parts of England, 
brought with them the various dialects then existing in the 
mother country. To these were added the Dutch, or the 
low Germanic language, in the State of New York ; the 
German, or the high Germanic language, spoken by hun- 
dreds of thousands in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, and 
the French and Spanish languages spoken in Louisiana 
and Florida. The Indians, too, have given us such words 
as homint/, powtvow, succotash^ and mocassin, while the 
peculiarities of our institutions and customs have given 
birth to such Americanisms as caucus, buncombe, 7nileage, 
bacJavoods and a one horse affair. 

The New England vernacular, or Yankee dialect, has 
its roots in old English. In general it may be said that 
nothing can be found in it which does not still survive in 
some one or other of the English provincial dialects. " Cos 
ichv^ is as old as Chaucer, I donH see it was the popular 



HUMOBS OF DIALECT. 87 

slang in Colley Gibber's time, and when Gen. Banks spoke 
of "letting the Union slide'' he used a proverbial expres- 
sion found in several old English plajs. In the mouths 
of our people this speech is instinctive and is moulded to 
suit the exigencies of the speaker, the loftiest expressions 
being humiliated to the humblest uses. Its imaginative 
quality is seen in the commonest expressions. A man who 
is fatigued tells you he's een-a-7nost dead; if he is out of 
money he says he hasn't yiary red ; if he finds he has 
made a mistake he tells you he has been harking up the 
wrong tree, when he thinks matters are all right he caker- 
lates things are about east ; he never gives up, but some- 
times caves in; if a thing isn't perfectly clear to his com- 
prehension, he thinks it's kinder curiis ; he is not often 
neutral, but sometimes sits on the fence until he can see 
which wag the cat jumps; though not often cornered he 
sometimes gets into a fix and is made to fork over ; even 
then he doesn't leave in a hurry, he makes tracks; he 
considers himself equal to all emergencies, a whole team 
and a big dog under the wagon ; he assures you the fact 
is just so, there's no two wags about it; he expresses his 
wonder or surprise by exclaiming "i)it tell — how you du 
talk!" and when everything is settled to his mind he's all 
hunkg dory. 

Dean Ramsay gives an anecdote to illustrate the force 
of the Scotch dialect, even when confined to the inflections 
of a single monosyllable. Finding a festive company at a 
roadside cottage, and asking the occasion of the merry- 



88 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

making, one of the lasses standing about replied, "Ou, it's 
juist a wedding o' Jock Thompson and Janet Frazer." 
To the question ''Is the bride rich?" there was a plain, 
quiet "Na." ''Is she young ?" a more emphatic and decid- 
ed "Naa !" but to the query "Is she bonny ?" a most elab- 
orate and prolonged shout of "Naaa !" 

Now the Yankee has a monosyllable to which he gives 
even a greater number of inflections than the Scotch lassie 
gave to her JVa. It is a most useful word, and is employ- 
ed on all occasions. It is the opening of a speech and the 
conclusion of a bargain. It is at times prolonged to the 
trebling of the vowel and again abbreviated to the last 
consonant. It expresses every shade of meaning from 
attention, deliberation, deprecation and dissent up to de- 
termination, affirmation and conclusion. It is the little 
word well, which in its different intonations becomes wul, 
wal, ahl, tvahl, ooa-ahl, each expressive of a different 
shade of meaning. If your friend dissents from what you 
have advanced he begins his deprecatory remarks with wee- 
al ; if he is in doubt about the positions you have assumed 
he says ive-alll^ and if he finally assents to your views he 
gives an emphatic wal. I once heard a lawyer, afterwards 
a distinguished judge on the bench of the United States, 
begin a speech with his hands in his pockets, in true Yan- 
kee fashion — ''^ival^ non)?^ 

Professor Lowell relates that a friend of his once heard 
five "wells," like pioneers, precede the answer to an in- 
quiry about the price of land. The first was the ordinary 



HUMORS OF DIxiLECr. 89 

wal, in deference to custom ; the second, the long, perpend- 
ing ooahl, with a falling inflection of the voice ; the third, 
the same, but with the voice rising as if in despair of a 
conclusion, into a plaintively nasal whine, ooahl, the fourth 
walk, ending with the asperate of a sigh, and then, fifth, 
came a short, sharp tual, showing that a conclusion had 
been reached. 

There is a plain, practical common sense about our New 
England people that often finds expression in a quaintness 
of speech that gives it the force of an aphorism. Indeed 
I have often been struck with the aptness of expression 
given by certain forms of speech in common use, which 
seem to be used instinctively. There is not a choice of 
language, causing hesitation in selection, as in the case of 
an educated man, but certain words and phrases seem to 
be always lying at hand, ready to be taken up and used as 
the ready workman employs his tools. They are adapted 
to all occasions and form the limited but expressive vocab- 
ulary of the people. They are the ready moulds into 
which the common thought is poured. They are not so 
much proverbs, as proverbial expressions, incipient axioms, 
serving as a short-hand method of speech and conveying 
much in little. 

I remember a weather-beaten old man who had spent his 
life in battling with the elements on one of the out-lying 
islands of our coast. He had not buffeted wind and wave 
for sixty years without acquiring a stock of homely wisdom 
relative to the conduct of life, and as he came up period- 



90 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

ically to mj father's house, from his home in the sea, and 
sat by the evening fireside, he discoursed on the changes 
and chances and mishaps of life, the shiftlessness of one and 
the head-long folly of another, always winding up his dis- 
sertation with the words, "Fact is, people ain't mor'n partly 
larnt haow to live." I thought then that the old man was 
a queer old codger ; I know now that he was a wise philos- 
opher. 

This quaintness of speech often serves to give forcible 
illustration to a statement. A man in the horse-cars 
speaking of the vicissitudes of fortune experienced by an 
acquaintance, said — "he has had as many ups and downs 
as a pair o' steelyards." Another, describing the stock 
in trade of the keeper of a variety store, said "he had 
everything to sell, from a needle to a clap o' thunder !" 

The resources of the native vocabulary are largely 
drawn upon in the invention of expletives which shall give 
force to expression without absolutely touching the verge 
of profanity. The Yankee believes it is wicked to swear, 
but like the Scotch maiden he instinctively recognizes the 
fact that an oath may be a great "set aff" to conversation, 
and so he softens the characteristic oath of the English- 
man into "Goll darn it ;" he expresses his astonishment 
by the exclamation Jerusale7n, and he swears "by gum." 
A favorite expression of a green down-easter whom I once 
knew was — "Holy 'Tarnal, yer might as well try to stick 
a spoon in the wall!" "Scissors and pipe-stems!" was 
the exclamation of an individual at the exorbitant charges 



HUMORS OF DIALECT. 91 

of a peripatetic vender of clams. "Faith, I swan," said 
an old farmer to me, "I do like cowcumbers," and he had 
old English precedent for his pronunciation of the name of 
his favorite "garden sarse," if not for his peculiar oath. 

The humor of the Yankee, like that of the Scotchman, 
is pawkj/, dry, evasive and disguised bj a grave exterior 
and unconscious air. It has also a quality native to the 
soil and peculiarly its own — its exaggeration and minute- 
ness of detail. This latter feature is not so much mere 
extravagance as intensity and picturesqueness of expres- 
sion, showing the imaginative faculty in full and healthy 
play. Thus when a Yankee describes a negro as "so 
black that charcoal made a chalk-mark on him," declares 
that he painted a shingle so like marble that it sank in 
water," and says that "the floor of the old meetin'-'us is 
so uneven that in passmg up one of the aisles a person 
goes out of sight thirteen times," he is dealing in the raw 
material of poetry. 

This imaginative faculty is seen in the reply of the back- 
woodsman when asked if he would have cream and sugar. 
"No, thank ye, I take my tea bar'foot," and also in the 
description of the county jail (the one stone building where 
all the dwellings were of wood) as "the house whose under- 
pinnin' comes up to the eaves." A countryman described 
the abode of Satan, as "the place where they don't rake 
up their fires nights." Josh Billings, boasting of the 
crowded attendance at his lecture, said that the hall was 
so full that the last man who came in had to leave his 



92 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

walking stick outsirle I Old Uncle Higgins, a rustic wag 
of local celebrity, one day when he was past eighty years 
old, seeing a horse jockey leading an animal that gave evi- 
dent tokens of greater age than his owner was willing to 
acknowledge, exclaimed — "I hate that hoss !" "What 
for?" said the astonished jockey. "Because he bit me 
when I was a boy, and I've hated him ever since !" A 
Yankee at work in the hay field took a long pull at the 
jug of blackstrap always provided in old times for the men 
in the mowing season. His companioiji, alarmed for his 
share of the exhilarating fluid, cried out to him to hold up. 
"Why," said the drinker, wiping his hps with unction, "I 
bit it oif as short as I could." "Then your teeth must be 
tarnal dull," was the instant reply. 

Sometimes a remark is made in all seriousness which 
becomes ludicrous from the very unconsciousness of the 
speaker. Thus a worthy countryman, discoursing of his 
wife's illness, said, "she had been sick a long time, — one 
day she was up and the next day she was down again — 
and it was a great deal of trouble— he did wish she Avould 
get well, or so^nething P^ 

Of a similar spirit was the reply of a worthy man who 
was afflicted with an ailing wife, much given to "bad 
spells," from which, however, she speedily recovered. He 
was telling a neighbor that his wife was down again, suf- 
fering from her usual attack, and he was much dispirited 
about it. "Do you think she will die ?" asked the neigh- 
bor. "Well, no; I guess not, she aint apt to," was the 
disconsolate reply. 



HUMORS OF DIALECT. 93 

Mr. Fields describes Hawthorne as nearly bursting with 
laughter at the solemn remark of a butcher, that "idees had 
got afloat in the public mind with respect to sassingers." 

Another peculiarity of Yankee humor is the smart, 
evasive answer, by which a troublesome question is avoided. 
"Your corn looks rather weak and yaller," said a trav- 
eller to a small boy hoeing in a corn-field. "We planted 
the yaller kind," replied the urchin. "You won't get 
mor'n half a crop," continued the traveller. "We don't 
expect to, we planted at the halves," was the ready rejoin- 
der. A Cape Cod school master boasting to an English- 
man that the Americans had always whipped the British 
in the war of the Revolution, was asked what he thought 
of the battle of White Plains, in Avhich the Americans 
Avere defeated. "Why," said he, "I do remember some- 
thing about that — though if you hadn't mentioned it I 
never should have thought of it. The fact is, we never 
thought much of that battle — somehow or other our folks 
couldn't seem to take no kind of interest." 

A sly insinuation is sometimes conveyed in a dry remark. 
An old grave-digger was accosted one morning by an ac- 
quaintance with the remark — "Well, Dr. Brackett died 
last night." "Yaas," said the sexton, "and it's bad busi- 
ness for me" — adding after a pause, "he sent me mor'n 
half my customers !" 

It has been remarked that men of great native power, 
when they would give strong expression to their feelings, 
not unfrequently make use of their native dialect. Sir 



94 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

Walter Scott, when in animated conversation, often dropped 
into broad Scotch, and when O'Connell would rouse his 
Irish audiences to the highest pitch of enthusiasm he 
addressed them in their native Celtic tongue. Bismarck's 
idiomatic phrase,— "leaving Paris to stew in her own 
gravj," has become historical. Daniel Webster once made 
a most effective satirical use of the Yankee dialect on the 
floor of the United States Senate. Mr. Foote, of Missis- 
sippi, a violent and inveterate talker, whose fire-eating 
threats in the days of Southern supremacy gained for him 
the nickname of "Hangman Foote," to serve some pur- 
pose of his own thought proper, on one occasion, to beslob- 
ber Mr. Webster with his offensive praise. Referring to 
him as the distinguished statesman of New England, he 
went on in fulsome strains to speak of his giant intellect 
and his majestic eloquence. Mr. Webster bore the inflic- 
tion until it became nauseating, and then turning on him a 
half quizzical, half contemptuous glance he squelched his 
tormentor by exclaiming, with the true Yankee drawl, 
"Gite-o-u-tr 

The New England dialect has played an important part 
in American literature. As humor is the flavor of na- 
tional character, it is always associated with the genius or 
peculiar cast of the national language. Hence nearly all 
our humorous writers have attempted dialect, though not 
always with success. Seba Smith, in his Major Jack 
Downing, was the first to put the Yankee vernacular to 
humorous use. Artemus Ward, who was a true satirist, 



HUMORS OF DIALECT. 95 

not wanting in earnestness or depth of feeling, mercilessly 
exposing all kinds of humbug with extravagant humor, 
made effective use of his native speech, though he was not 
always true to nature. He distorted the Yankee dialect 
with a fantastic lingo of his own, inventing such Avords as 
singist and dostest and mucJily. His description of the 
undergarment of the male species as "a clean biled rag," 
is the quintessence of Yankee quaintness, which reduces 
everything to its prime elements, or rudest expression. 
Josh Billings's lingo is merely bad spelling, without ver- 
nacular truthfulness. The dialect is spurious, though the 
wit and wisdom are genuine. Josh commenced writing 
his quaint and pungent paragraphs in correct English, but 
finding they attracted no attention, he resorted to bad 
spelling to meet the popular demand for dialect in humor. 
It is instinctively expected by the public that humor will 
find expression in the vernacular speech. This explains 
the general resort to incorrect orthography by humorous 
writers, some of whom, though they may write funnily, have 
no command of dialect. 

The great master of the New England dialect is James 
Russell Lowell. He has evangelized it, and put it to the 
highest i)urposes of satire in the defence of truth and jus- 
tice. He has made our vernacular a close study, and 
gives the exact speech of the people, with all its twists of 
phrases and peculiarities of pronunciation. His Biglow 
Papers, unapproachable in the overflow and richness of 
their humor, full of profound earnestness and deep and 



96 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

practical sagacity, show the most complete command of 
our dialect, in all its extravagance and careless freedom. 
Written at the time of the Mexican war, which the author 
regarded as unjustly waged for the extension of slavery, 
they satirize it with the keenest zest. Hosea is an honest. 
God-fearing, Yankee farmer, with a conscientious hatred 
of war and slavery. Resisting the specious allurements 
of the recruithig sergeant he says — 

"Thrash away, you'll hev to rattle 

On them kittle drums o' yourn,— 
'Taint a kuowiii' kind o' cattle 

Thet is ketched with mouldy corn ; 
Put in stiff, you titer feller, 

Let folks see how spry you be— 
Guess you'll toot till you are yeller 

'Fore you git ahold o' me!" 

He goes home and gives expression to his indignation by 
writing verses. His father, Zekiel Biglow, who says of 
himself, "I've lived here man and boy seventy-six year 
cum next tater digging, and there aint no wheres a kitting 
spryer'n I be" — thereupon writes to Parson Wilbur — "Ar- 
ter I'd gone to bed, I heern him a thrashin' round like a 
short-tailed bull in fli-time. The old woman says she to 
me, says she, 'Zekle, says she, our Hosea's gut the chol- 
lery or suthin' another,' says she ; 'don't you be skeared,' 
says I, 'he's oney a makin' pottery.' " So Hosea made 
his pottery which Parson Wilbur pronounced to be "true 
grit." 

"Ezfur war, I call it murder- 
There you hev it, plain and tiat; ♦ 
I don't want to go no furder 
Than my Testyment fur that; 



HUMORS OF DIALECT. 97 

God luis sed so plump and fairly, 

It's ez long ez it is broad, 
An' you've got to get up airly 

Ef you want to take in God. 

'Taint your appyletts an' feathers 

Make the thing a grain more right; 
'Taint afollerin' your bell-wetliers 

Will excuse ye in His sight; 
Ef you take a sword an' draw it, 

An' go stick a feller thru', 
Gov'ment aint to answer for it,/ 

God'll send the bill to you." 

This is the protest of religious Puritanism against war, 
expressed in the strongest possible form, and with that gro- 
tesqueness of familiarity with the Supreme Being which 
springs not from levity, but profound belief — as the abso- 
lute faith of the Roman Catholic permits him almost to 
joke about his saints and the Madonna. 

Dialect sometimes springs out of the imperfect mixture 
of races, and next to the Yankee element in our speech 
may be ranked the Dutch, forming in the Middle States 
a new-made provincial idiom fresh moulded to the needs 
of a free and careless generation. Of this dialect, which 
may be called the Pennsylvania German, Mr. Leland has 
made the most successful use in his Breitmann Ballads. 
His speech is not always true to life, he coins words half 
way between English and German, and skilfully moulds 
the latter element into gutteral greediness and shibboleths 
of sentiment. He has great humor, but differs from Low- 
ell in moral purpose. His hero is a scoffer and a mocker, 
and lacks the faith of Hosea Biglow. Hans Breitmann is 



98 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

a grasping, drinking, plundering, fighting, sentimental Ger- 
man, the embodiment of selfishness and sensuality. Thus 
while the Breitmann ballads approach the Biglow Papers 
in humor, they fall far short of them in deep, practical 
sagacity and profound earnestness of purpose. But they 
possess even more bouyancy and animal spirits, and are of 
more universal application, being in reality satires on cer- 
tain universal elements in human nature. There is humor 
in them, but humor with no heart in it. Take, for instance, 
the burlesque of sentiment in the love song — 

"O vere mine lofe a sugar-powl, 
De fery slimallest loonip 
Vouldt shveet de seas from bole to bole 
Und make de shildren shoomj)." 

The dialect of Mr. Leland's hero is slow and sensual, as 
though he were picking his way w^ith difficulty through the 
labyrinth of speech, but it has a delicate feeling for hu- 
mor and abounds in odd turns and combinations of speech. 
He affects to use the most familiar and ludicrous expres- 
sions as if they were full of sentiment. Thus in praising 
his lady love : 

"Her heafenly foice,it drills me so 

It really seems to lioort; 
She isli de holiest animiU 

Dat roojis oopon de dirt. 
De re'nbow rises when she sings; 

De sonn shine veil she dalk, 
De angels crow and flop deer vings 

Ven she goes out to valk." 

My theme has led me into discursive fields, but I return 



HUMOBS OF DIALECT. 99 



to mj first thought, that in the speech of the people we 
find the hfe and raciness of language. And is it not also 
true that from the common people spring oftenest those 
strong, true souls to whom in time of peril all men look for 
leadership and guidance? In the hour of our national trial, 
when the very foundations of our political system seemed 
breaking up and the fragments floating into chaos, to whom 
did we look for hope, for safety and deliverance ? Not to 
the wealthy classes, not to the men of high culture, not to 
the statesmen experienced in affairs. From none of these 
came our succor and our help in time of trouble, but up 
from the poor and lowly, the despised white trash of the 
South, trodden into the mire by the lordly slaveholder, 
there arose a long, lank, gaunt figure, with all the flavor 
of his native soil about him, whom God had made, as he 
made Adam, out of the very earth, unancestried, unpriv- 
ileged, unknown, the incarnate common sense of the peo- 
ple, deeply conscientious and profoundly humorous, the 
fountain of anecdote as well as of honor, idiomatic in speech, 
awkward in manner, homely in figure, but conspicuous in 
kingship, tender in his nature, wise in his statesmanship, 
the very homeliness of his genius its greatest distinction, 
as if God would show us how much truth, how much mag- 
nanimity, how much statecraft even, await the call of oppor- 
tunity in simple manhood when it believes in the justice 
of God and the worth of man — declaring himself ready to 
die, as he did, for his country, at once its representative 
man, its saint and martyr, — Abraham Lincoln. 



DREAMS. 



All men dream. In waking hours the reflective mind 
turns inward and indulges in those reveries which take us 
out of our immediate surroundings. The young dream of 
the future ; the old see visions of the past. These day- 
dreams are the border-land of reality ; their castle-build- 
ing, though often fading into nothingness, not unfrequently 
results in solid edifices. He who never dreams of possibil- 
ities, seldom achieves actualities. 

But I purpose to deal with the dreams which come with 
sleep — visions, the poet tells us, 

" less beguiling far, 

Than waking dreams by daylight are." 

Sleep is a mystery. It is almost as little understood as 
life itself. Science has yet done little to explain its phe- 
nomena. It has been defined as a rest of the external life, 
a device common to all organic forms. We know some- 
thing of its action upon the machinery of the body, but 
very little of its relations to the machinery of the mind. 
Within the realm of these relations Hes the province of 
dreams. They are as mysterious as sleep itself, and as 



1) BEAMS. . 101 

universal. It is a question whether we ever sleep with- 
out dreaming, though we may be unconscious of it. Dreams 
are forgotten before we waken to recall them. Kant says, 
^'to cease to dream would be to cease to live ; the mind 
must necessarily be active." 

Though so shadowy, dreams are often very real. The 
impressions which arise in our mind during sleep seem 
often to have a real and present existence. There is not 
unfrequently a suffering in them so acute as to waken us 
in a manner anything but pleasant. On the other hand 
they are at times as sweet and refreshing as the slumber 
of Ulysses, when 

" golden dreams (the gift of sweet repose) 

Lull'd all his cares, and banished all his woes." 

A friend once suggested to me that dreams were given us 
as a compensation for the trials and deprivations of life. 
Ah, but what shall we say of those terrible dreams which 
make us toss in agony and start from sleep in dread and 
wild alarm ? Perhaps they are sent upon us to punish us 
for our sins, or to counterbalance the good we enjoy in wak- 
ing hours — as when we indulge too heavily in sumptuous 
suppers. 

Dreams have played an important part in shaping the 
course of human action. We trace their influence through 
all the tide of time. It would be an interesting study to 
follow them through all the pages of history and observe 
their action in changing the course of events, and shaping 
the thoughts of men. They were early believed to be the 



102 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

divine medium of communication with mankind. The 
Bible tells us that by means of dreams God taught his 
chosen people that they had spiritual faculties, and that 
there was a spiritual universe beyond the material one. 
In the days of Joseph and of Daniel no doubt was enter- 
tained of the supernatural origin of all dreams. The his- 
tory of Joseph is a history of dreams, influencing the des- 
tiny of a family, which was to become a great nation. He 
dreams that the sheaves of his brothers bow down before 
his, and this leads to the long sojourn of Israel in Egypt. 
The King's butler and baker dream, and their dreams are 
fulfilled. At last Pharaoh dreams, and the result is that 
Joseph rises to power and greatness. The patriarch Jacob 
saw in a dream a ladder extending from heaven to earth, 
upon which the angels ascended and descended, and the 
promise then given that in him and his progeny all the fam- 
ihes of the earth should be blessed, became the leading 
tradition of the Jew^s, an(i enters into the faith of all Chris- 
tian nations. Saul dreamed that the persecuted One 
appeared and rebuked him, and he became the great 
expounder of the new faith. Constantine had a vision of 
the Cross, and the Roman world became Christian. Chris- 
tianity is a religion of dreams and visions. 

Dreams, too, entered largely into the religion of the 
Greeks, and influenced their daily life. The interpreters 
of dreams formed one of their learned professions. A 
Greek would consult one of these men as naturally as he 
would a lawyer or doctor — and doubtless with as much 



DREAMS. 103 

profit. Artemidorus, who spent the best of his clays in 
reducing dreams to the obedience of exact rules, but with 
little success, said that to dream of a chain meant a wife, 
or hindrance ; and to dream of the "belly" meant children, 
for they cry for meat. 

Among the more sceptical Romans dreams had less sway. 
The poet Ennius wTites — 

"Augurs and soothsayers, astrologers, 
Diviners and interpreters of dreams, 
I ne'er consult and heartily despise. 
Wanderers tliemselves, they guide another's steps ; 
And for poor sixpences promise countless wealth : 
Let them, if they expect to be believed, 
Deduct the sixpence, and bestow the rest." 

The Christian fathers were believers in dreams. The 
learned Tertullian attached great importance to the soul's 
power of divining in dreams. He boldly asserts that by 
some connection with the disembodied state the soul is 
able to see into futurity. 

Passing to the Middle Ages, and to the darker days of 
the church, the interpretation of dreams became in the 
hands of unscrupulous priests a most dangerous power, 
and bore much bitter fruit. The Mahometans, too, were 
very superstitious about dreams. With them the most 
fortunate dream a man could have was to see his wife's 
tongue cut off at the roots ! Perhaps this was from a feel- 
ing that the less men's wives said about them the better. 

My Lord Bacon had no faith in dreams. He says, 
"They ought to be despised, and to serve but for winter 



104 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

talk by the fireside." Sir Thomas Browne is not so scep- 
tical. He quaintly remarks, "we are somewhat more than 
ourselves in our sleep, and the slumbers of the body seem 
to be but the waking of the soul. It is ligation of sense, 
but the liberty of reason ; and our waking conceptions do 
not match the fancies of our sleep. I was born in the 
planetary hour of Saturn, and I think I have a piece of 
that leaden planet in me. I am in no way facetious, nor 
disposed for the mirth and galliardise of company ; yet in 
one dream I can compose a whole comedy, behold the ac- 
tion, apprehend the jests, and laugh myself at the conceits 
thereof. Were my memory as faithful as my reason is then 
fruitful, I would never study but in my dreams." He 
thinks those narrow-minded who refuse to grant that the 
soul in slumber may hold converse with disembodied beings. 
In our day, belief in dreams is confined to the uneducat- 
ed classes. Yet strange dreams are every day recorded 
in the newspapers, and every book store has its stock of 
dream-books, and lottery tickets are purchased, and real 
estate bought and sold, through faith in dreams. The 
popular dream-book is a small volume with the portrait of 
the great Corsican on its cover, and entitled "Napoleon's 
Complete Dream-Book, comprising full, plain and accurate 
explanations of fortune-telling by dreams, visions and rev- 
eries ; the only true and reliable treatise (consulted by the 
great Corsican,) upon this most useful and marvellous art." 
The compiler of this wonderful work asserts that it is the 
duty of every sagacious and intelligent person to pay heed 



DREAMS. 1Q5 

to the prophetic communications of dreams, and to assist 
those who are wise she gives "fortunate numbers, enunci- 
ated through visions, which can be successfully used for the 
purpose of gain in lotteries, raffles, games of chance, and 
everything depending on lot or upon the hazard of the die." 

I refrain from tempting the reader with any of these, 
but some interpretations may be safely indulged in. Thus, 
when a man dreams his bed is on fire it signifies a disa- 
greement with his wife. To dream of eating cabbage very 
naturally signifies vexation. To dream of eating pap is a 
sign of gain and profit. This must refer to government 
pap. To dream of seeing or eating mustard seed is a bad 
omen, except to physicians, for whom this dream brings 
profit and increase of reputation. This must have refer- 
ence to the application of mustard plasters, a very drawino- 
practice. To dream of seeing many birds together signi- 
fies a court of law. Birds of prey must here be meant. 

In dismissing this wondrous volume one can but remark 
the freak of fortune by which the great conqueror, who 
dealt with terrible realities and was the terror of his ao-e 
has become the patron saint of dreamers and visionaries. 

With this brief glance at the history of the subject, I 
pass to consider the theory of dreams. What is a dream ? 
It has been defined as a mental process carried on during 
slumber. To dream is to think in our sleep. But what is 
it that thinks ? Is it an independent spirit inhabiting the 
body which continues active while that rests, or is it cer- 
tain organs of the mind, whose action is inseparable from 



106 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

the body ? In other words, is thinking a manifestation of 
spirit, or a development of matter ? The first theory has 
long obtained in the world ; the second is held by a class 
of advanced thinkers. It is not my purpose to discuss 
these theories here, but to take note of certain phenomena 
of dreams. 

Dreaming is thinking during slumber ; it is not the think- 
ing that goes on in our waking hours. It has a quahty of 
its own. It is characterized bv an absence of will, of con- 
trol over the thinking faculty. The action of a dream is 
very much like that of insanity. The faculties of the mind 
seem to run riot, and to indulge in freaks very much at 
their own sweet will. The supreme faculty which regu- 
lates, directs and controls our waking thoughts seems to 
abdicate its throne for the time, and give up the hour to 
the Lord of Misrule. It is the play-time of the mind. 
Yet while the loss of power over the succession of ideas is 
a leading phenomenon of dreams, there is often a coherency 
in their course, and not unfrequently a strong effort at 
volition. We will to do certain things, but lose the power 
of action. How often we strive for some object in our 
dreams but find it impossible to get on. Innumerable 
hindrances arise. We never arrive at the place for which 
we set out, or succeed in the action we attempt. Again, 
there comes at times, as a relief from an oppressive dream, 
a consciousness that it is only a dream, after all. This 
seems an effort of will to escape from the impending dan- 
ger, or the disagreeable dilemma, resulting in partial con- 



DREAMS. 107 

sciousuess, while yet sleep goes on. I have sometimes, 
after escaping from a disagreeable dream in this way, gone 
on dreaming about it, in a semi-conscious state. A lady 
of my acquaintance dreamed that a certain event took 
place ; she then went on to dream that while seated at the 
breakfast table the next morning the event of which she 
had dreamed actually occurred, and she exclaimed, "My 
dream has come true I" Here was a dream within a dream 
— a consciousness of dreaming while dreaming still. 

Dreams are capable of many classifications, but with 
reference to their causes, it will be sufficient for the pur- 
poses of this paper to divide them into three classes ; viz : 
those which may be assigned to sensations of the organs 
of the body, or to the senses proper ; secondly, those 
which seem referable to mind and memory ; and thirdly, 
those to which, in default of further evidence, a supernat- 
ural origin is popularly assigned. 

First, as to what may be called sensorial dreams. The 
practical mind of Franklin was one of the first to see the 
connection between the external conditions of the body and 
the operations of the mind during sleep. In his essay on 
"The art of Procuring Pleasant Dreams," he urges the 
practice of moderation in eating, of airing the bed-clothes, 
and of assuming an easy and comfortable position when 
lying down to sleep. By the practice of these rules, and 
the preservation of a good conscience, the philosopher 
thought it possible to command agreeable dreams, and thus 
to add so much to the pleasures of life. Doubtless a mind 



108 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

at ease, in a perfectly sound body, is seldom disturbed by 
unpleasant dreams, yet there are hidden and deep-lying 
sources of dreams which even these conditions will not 
reach. Great muscular exertion often gives color to our 
dreams. I remember after my first ascent of Mt. Wash- 
ington, when a boy, driving down the same night through 
Conway, and arriving near midnight at the hotel where we 
expected to find lodgings. The house was all astir ; lights 
were glancing from the windows, and in the stable-yard as 
we drove in, and presently the bustling landlord appeared 
and assured us he could not accommodate us ; — his house 
w^as full. Weary as we were this was a disappointment, 
but we were compelled to drive on some miles farther to a 
private house where, the landlord thought, we might find 
accommodation. It took much loud rapping to arouse the 
sleeping occupants, and when getting into the bed offered 
us in the little bedroom off the front room, we found, from 
its warmth, that it had just been vacated by the old farmer 
and his wife, who had retired to a bed elsewhere. But we 
were too weary to insist on a fresh bed, and soon sunk into 
an uneasy slumber, in which my boy companion and myself 
tossed and turned until we tied ourselves up in the bed- 
clothes with all manner of inextricable knots. I dreamed 
of climbing the mountain, up a steep and narrow path, and 
as I struggled wearily on I came upon a pair of woman's 
shoes lying in the path. I took them in my hands and 
observed their form and fashion. Upon awaking in the 
morning the first objects my eyes fell upon was that iden- 



DREAMS. 109 

tical pair of shoes hanging upon the wall immediately at 
the foot of the bed. I had not the slightest recollection 
of having observed them before going to bed. They must 
therefore have been either unconsciously seen by me, and 
thus obtained a lodgment in my mind, or else in the toss- 
ing in my sleep I must have actually touched them as they 
hung upon the wall, and so given them entrance into my 
dream. But if so, how did I see them with my closed 
eyes, so as to be able to recognize them again ? 

Our senses are probably never wholly lost in slumber ; 
one or another is on guard, and all are partially accessible 
to the impressions which act upon them in the condition of 
wakefulness. But it is curious to observe that the ideas 
produced by external impressions in sleep, are seldom or 
never those produced by the same causes when awake. 
They become associated with other images floating in the 
mind and suggest other scenes and conditions than those 
by which we are surrounded. Thus Dr. Gregory tells 
how, having gone to sleep with a bottle of hot water at his 
feet, he dreamed that he was walking up the crater of Mt. 
Etna. This was a recollection of his ascent not of Mt. 
Etna, but of Mt. Vesuvius, years before, recalled by the 
warmth of the hot water at his feet. Another gentleman 
who had a blister applied to his head dreamed that he was 
being scalped. Alfred Maury, having his lips, and the 
end of his nose, tickled with a feather, dreamed that a 
pitch plaster had been applied to his face, and afterwards 
torn away so violently as to bring with it the skin of his 



110 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

lips, nose and face. When he was pinched at the back of 
his neck, he dreamed that a bhster was apphed to his neck ; 
and that broui>;ht to his mind a doctor who had treated him 
in his infancy. 

The sense of hearing is often the source of dreams. 
The slamming of a window-blind caused a patient in a hospi- 
tal to awake in great alarm, exclaiming, "thank God that it 
was only a dream." The noise of the blind had caused 
him to dream that a building had toppled down upon him, 
the shock awaking him. Though the sound was but of a 
second's duration, the time of the dream caused by it seem- 
ed a long half hour. Thus it frequently happens that the 
cause of a dream, and the dream itself, take place at the 
same time and in the act of awaking ; the action of the 
dream seeming to occupy a long period of time. A mili- 
tary officer observed that he was often awakened by the 
firing of a cannon near his tent, and that in the act of 
awaking he had a dream, including a long series of events 
which might be distinctly traced to the impression made on 
his senses by the explosion. Bj these facts it is pretty 
clearly established that we have no measure of time when 
asleep, and this suggests the serious thought that if this be 
indeed the property of the soul in the disembodied state, 
time will appear to us eternity. 

The sense of smell in dreams will often recall long past 
scenes with which a particular odor was associated. Many 
persons have even been awakened suddenly by the dis- 
tantly heard voice of a dream image ; though it is probable 



DREAMS. Ill 

that in these instances the dream- voice was caused by some 
external, but unrecognized sound. Sight is sometimes so 
excited bj dreams that the images seen in them are actu- 
ally visible for a short time after the eyes are open, on 
awaking. Spinoza remarks that a leprous negro, seen in 
a dream, haunted his waking hours for a time. 

That our dreams are greatly affected by the systematic 
sensations is evident to every one who reflects on the noto- 
rious effects of indigestion. Starving men dream of feast- 
ing. The thirsty quaff deeply of flowing streams. The 
wretched sufferers in the shipwreck of the Medusa, dying 
from thirst, had perpetual dreams of shady woods and run- 
ninor streams. The nursino; mother is made to dream of 
her child by the flow of milk to her breasts. People have 
dreamed of spending the severest winters in Siberia, and 
of joining expeditions to the North Pole, simply because 
the bed-clothes have been thrown off" during sleep. That 
position has much to do with producing bad dreams is gen- 
erally admitted. An individual who seldom dreamed al- 
ways had bad dreams when he slept with his arms raised 
over his head. 

It appears evident from what has been said that dreams 
are often caused by external impressions acting upon the 
senses ; it is also apparent that we dream difterent dreams 
according to our different bodily states. The hidden con- 
dition of the physical organism reveals itself in dreams. 
As Dr. Maudsley remarks, "when the avenues of impres- 
sions upon the brain through the external senses, are closed 



112 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

bj sleep, and the consciousness of the outer world is m 
abeyance, there may well be a greater susceptibility to 
impressions from within the body, and so the physiological 
sympathies of organs may declare themselves more dis- 
tinctly, just as the stars, invisible in the day, shine forth 
brightly at night, when the sun goes down." 

Passing now to the consideration of dreams referable to 
the operations of the mind, it is obvious to observe the- 
influences of memory in giving shape to their form and 
substance. It furnishes the warp of the web across which 
the tricksy sprite who seems to preside over our midnight 
imaginings shoots the woof of fancy, and thus weaves the 
stuff of which dreams are made. We dream of those 
things which are in the mind. The thoughts that occupy 
us during the day furnish hints and suggestions for our 
midnight visions. It is curious to trace the combinations 
into which these fall as naturally as if they did not make 
the most absurd situations imaginable. There seems to be 
in the mind at play a sense of humor which delights itself 
in forming, out of the shreds and patches of memory, the 
most ridiculous combinations. How the Dream Spirit must 
laugh and chuckle at some of the dreams which are seri- 
ous realities to the dreamer I 

Perhaps I may make clearer what I mean by this, in 
relating the dream of a lady, which has been confided to 
me in strict confidence, and which I transmit to the reader 
on the same terms. This lady, it must be understood at 
the outset, had a neighbor who sometimes annoyed her by 



DREAMS. 113 

intrusion into her grounds. She had, during the day, been 
interested by the fact that a lady with whom she had a 
slight acquaintance had given birth to twins. She had 
also a friend who was in the habit of driving up to her 
door and callino- her out for a moment's chat. Observe 
that these three conditions had no necessary connection 
Avith each other, except that the friend was a neighbor and 
relative of the lady who had given birth to twins. 

The lady dreamed that awaking on a Sunday morning, 
and looking from her window, she saw her obtrusive neigh- 
bor hanging out bed-quilts in her (the lady's) back yard. 
She was indignant at the liberty taken, and shocked that 
such work should be done on her premises on a Sunday. 
In deshabille as she was, she rushed down to remonstrate. 
She could not have those bed-quilts hanging there on a 
Sunday. The neighbor heard her remonstrances unmoved, 
but calmly said, in a listening attitude, "Don't I hear your 
baby crying?" Baby! why, good gracious, of course she 
had a baby, but she had never thought of it until now. 
With maternal solicitude she hastened into the house, leav- 
ing the objectionable neighbor mistress of the situation. 
She was met at the entrance by Susie, the maid of all 
work, who told her that one of the twins was crying. 
Twins ! why, of course she had twins, but she had entirely 
forgotten that interesting fact. As she proceeded to quiet 
her new-found babes she became aware that she was still 
in her night-dress, with her hair hanging loosely down her 
back. The appalling thought struck her, what if callers 



114 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

should come and catch her in this predicament I At that 
moment the door-bell rang ! The ever-ready Susie snatched 
a silken robe from the sofa, and told her she could put that 
on. The caller was her friend of the carriage, who wished 
her to step out to the gate. As she proceeded to comply 
she called to Susie to take charge of the twins. "No 
marm," said that long-suffering maid, "I didn't come here 
to take care of twins !" This was the drop that overflowed 
the dreamer's cup of misery. She could endure no more 
— the shock awoke her, and as she thus escaped from her 
dilemma, she might, if she had listened with the fine ear 
of the spirit, have heard the mocking laugh of the Dream- 
fiend as he vanished from the scene. 

Observe now with what humorous, not to say malicious, 
ingenuity he had contrived the situations of the dreamer's 
ridiculous dilemma, by adding new elements to the sugges- 
tions of memory. The neighbor's trespass was heightened 
by the act of intrusion being done on the Sabbath day. 
The fun of the twins was prolonged by throwing them in 
one by one. The dilemma of the night-dress was increased 
by the prompt ringing of the door-bell, and the refusal of 
Susie came in as the fitting climax to all household annoy- 
ances. 

But it is not merely the thoughts or occurrences of the 
day that mingle with our dreams. Memory recalls long 
past scenes of our boyhood, which in waking hours were 
wholly forgotten. Familiar scenes are visited again, and 
tales are told which we have not heard for many a year. 



DREAMS. 115 

We may conclude from this that the mind really forgets 
nothing ; that somewhere in its secret recesses every event 
or fact is indelibly recorded, some day to be revealed. 
They do not enter into our consciousness, but the impres- 
sions remain, only awaiting the touching of the secret 
spring which shall again bring them under our observation. 
Maury relates that in his early years he visited Trilpont, a 
village on the Marne, where his father had built a bridge. 
Later in life he dreamed that he was a child playing at 
Trilpont, and that he saw a man clothed in a sort of uni- 
form, who told him his name, and that he was gate-keeper 
at the bridge. Maury awoke with the name in his ears, 
which he did not in the least remember ever to have heard. 
Inquiring of one of his father's old servants if she recol- 
lected a person bearing such a name, she instantly replied 
that he was gate-keeper at the Marne when the bridge was 
built. The recallmg of such obscure impressions of mem- 
ory in sleep is doubtless due in part to the fact that the 
mind is then withdrawn from the tracks of its habitual 
functions, which do not lead back to the forgotten events, 
and is left free to follow old and long unused paths. I 
suppose the physiologist would say that the blood, no longer 
forced in certain directions by the use of certain faculties, 
flows in multitudes of minute channels through the most 
intimate recesses of the structure of the brain, stimulating 
into activity the nerve cells which act upon the most remote, 
as well as the more recent, registrations. 

It even seems that some obscure and undeveloped qual- 



116 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

ities of the mind are revealed in dreams. Henry Ward 
Beecher once remarked in a lecture that he was very much 
accustomed to dream of flying. When, next morning, this 
was told to one of our old Cape Elizabeth farmers, at the 
breakfast table, he dropped his knife and fork, and ex- 
claimed, "Well, now, that's curious. I was born on the 
same day of the same year on which Henry Ward Beecher 
was born, and / am always dreaming of flying." Mr. 
Beecher is a man of soaring imagination, who in his dreams 
might well find himself in the clouds, but our old friend of 
the Cape, is a hard, matter-of-fact man, never suspected of 
any touch of imagination. Yet who shall say but that some 
trace of that .faculty might not be lying dormant in his 
mind, only disporting itself in his dreams ? What connec- 
tion might lie in the coincidence of birth it is difficult to 
say, unless we accept the old faith that men's gifts and for- 
tunes are ruled by the planets under which they are born. 
What is certain is, that imagination, as well as memory, 
plays a prominent part in the shaping of our dreams. It 
commonly runs riot, wildly mixing together incongruous 
ideas into the most absurd forms, but still evincing its won- 
derful shaping power in the vivid dramas which it represents. 
With all this wild riot of the imagination, however, there 
is often a singular coherency in dreams, in which the 
dreamer puts forth as much intellectual power as he ever 
displays when awake. Many stories are told on good au- 
thority of persons who have in their sleep composed poems, 
solved hard problems in mathematics, discovered the key 



DREAMS. 117 

of a perplexing difficulty, or done like wonderful things. 
The mind, put to a strain, and disturbed bj distracting 
influences, sometimes fails to perform its offices in waking 
hours, and only recovers its native strength in the repose 
of sleep. Thus a ship-builder once told me that when a 
young man he had difficulty in working out the lines of a 
ship he was building. After pondering upon the matter, 
with no result, he retired to rest, and in his dreams worked 
it out to a satisfactory conclusion. So the story is told of 
a lawyer, perplexed as to the legal management of a case, 
who, in a dream conceived a method of proceeding which 
had not occurred to him when he was awake, and which he 
adopted with success. 

In these instances the results remained and were of ser- 
vice, but it often happens that thoughts and methods which 
seem admirable in our dreams, prove to be nonsense when 
we are awake. I have sometimes dreamed of a course of 
reasoning which might be used in a certain case, and have 
resolved in my dream to use it, but on awaking have found 
very little in it. The only result of mental operations in 
my dreams which abides with me is a fragment of verse, 
either recalled by memory, or composed in my dream. As 
I have no recollection of ever having seen the lines before, 
and have never met with them in my reading since the 
dream, I am led to suppose they were actually composed in 
it. They run thus : 

"So tender thoughts come through the uight, 

Soft-footed, like the dew, 
And falling on our bruised hearts, 
All their lost youth renew." 



118 FRATERNITY PAPERS, 

I am afraid the metaphor here is a little mixed, but I don't 
feel responsible for that. 

It is reported of the poet Campbell that while engaged 
in composing "Lochiel's Warning," he became perplexed 
as to how he should best put into rhythmical shape an idea 
which was working in his brain. He had been striving a 
whole day to find adequate expression for his thought, but 
night found him still unsatisfied. It will be remembered 
that Campbell was fastidious and difficult to please in re- 
gard to niceties of language. With his mind still running 
in the same groove, he went to bed and fell asleep. While 
he slept, the idea flashed through his brain clothed in fit- 
ting and adequate words. He started up in bed, suddenly 
wide awake, rose, struck a light, sat down at a table, and 
instantly wrote the well-known couplet : 

" 'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore, 
And events to come cast their shadows before." 

The poet then went to sleep again. In the morning he 
made a single alteration in the couplet, writing for "events 
to come," "coming events," the shape in which of course 
the lines appeared in the completed poem. 

In our deepest sleep, when the mind is farthest removed 
from the influences of daily life, there seems at times to 
be a revelation of low-lying traits derived from far-removed 
conditions — conditions which have existed beyond the life 
of the individual, in that of the race. Professor Shaler 
has remarked that the deepest level to which we fall in 
sleep is that of the blind fear which comes with nightmares. 



DREAMS. 119 

He attributes the existence of this singular sense of fear, 
at the very bottom of consciousness, to the mental struc- 
ture which man has inherited. There seems to me to be 
much force in the observation. Primitive man, findins: 
himself left to contend with the mysterious forces of nature, 
in a world as jet unsubdued, was awed bj his surround- 
ings, and fear became his ruling passion. In the difficul- 
ties with which he was forced to contend, to gain even an 
animal subsistence, he believed himself surrounded by evil 
powers, ever bent on his destruction. In his sense of help- 
lessness in contending with the storm, the earthquake, and 
the wild beasts which then disputed with him the posses- 
sion of the earth, fear fell upon him, and he sought to pro- 
pitiate the Powers of Evil. We find here the origin of 
devil-worship. It was born of fear, which yet remains the 
strongest and deepest passion of savages. In civilized man 
it has been steadily overmastered by his highest qualities, 
by the courage which comes of experience, by his mastery 
over the forces of nature. "But sleep, like a truth-teller, 
holds up the mirror of our old existence to us — the exist- 
ence we have passed in other beings, and shows us how 
that life has been driven on, in dreadful flight by fear." 

Leaving now the comparatively firm ground of what may 
be called "sensorial" and mental dreams we come to a class 
of dreams, or visions, not to be explained by the causes 
named. They come, or are claimed to come from sources 
independent of the physical organization. For want of a 
better name we call them supernatural, though they may be 



120 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

as much a part of man's nature as any of his senses. It is 
claimed that through their agency evil has been averted, 
the innocent saved, and the guilty punished. They come 
as warnings from a superintending power, or they open 
communications between kindred souls far removed in space 
from each other. They are constantly occurring, and though 
often received with incredulity, are implicitly believed by 
the subjects of them. Instances are familiar to us all. But 
the other day a Nevada newspaper contained the story of 
a woman hastening in alarm to a distant mine, in which she 
had dreamed an accident had befallen her husband. The 
dream proved true. Then there is the story of Mrs. Mar- 
tin, the wife of an English farmer, who was in terrible dis- 
tress of mind because her daughter Maria was missing. 
It was feared she had been murdered by her sweet- 
heart in a fit of jealousy, and hidden somewhere. For a 
long time no trace of the body could be found. At length 
the mother had a dream, in which it was revealed to her 
that the corpse of her child was buried under the barn- 
floor. This proved to be the case, the body was recovered, 
and the murderer detected. Again, the mother of a medi- 
cal student dreamt that her son had got into serious trouble 
in London, and she could not rest until she had left her 
home in the Midland counties, and sought him out. To 
her sorrow, the dream was painfully verified, and the con- 
sequences might have been serious if she had not arrived 
in time. A Scotch clergyman who lived near Edinburgh 
dreamt one night, while on a visit in that town, that he 



DREAMS. 121 

saw a fire, and one of his children in the midst of it. On 
awaking, he instantly got up, and returned home with the 
greatest speed. He found his house on fire, and was just 
in time to assist one of his children who in the alarm had 
been left in a place of danger. 

In all these instances there is a clear purpose of warning, 
but in some cases, the dream, though fulfilled, seemed in- 
consequential. A gentleman living in Yorkshire had a most 
vivid dream of the Tower of London, — which he had never 
seen — and more especially of the room in which the regaha 
and crown jewels are kept. He heard the old woman, who 
showed the room, address the audience, and treasured 
up carefully her very peculiarities of voice, dress, manner 
and features, and created considerable amusement among 
his friends by mimicking the phantom show-woman when 
he awoke. He went to London soon after, and of course 
visited the Tower, where he was astonished and somewhat 
sobered by the phantom's counterpart, which was identical 
in every respect. 

These dreams, in many instances, seem well-authenticat- 
ed, yet they are always open to doubt, and the sceptical 
mind is slow to receive them. It may be doubted in some 
instances, if they are related with entire faithfulness. 
Memory plays many strange tricks, and a story gets many 
a twist in passing from mouth to mouth. Still it is to be 
remembered that dreams of another class, involving no 
supernatural machinery, are taken on trust, though they 
are of a character far less likely to make a deep and last- 



122 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

ing impression on the memory of the dreamer than those 
we are now discussing. Again it may be said that out of 
the multitude of dreams it would be strange if some did 
not come true. Their fulfilment is a coincidence not more 
surprising than many that occur in our actual experiences. 
As to the dreams of warning — why is one warned out of 
many, and why does the warning often come too late ? 
Then as to many instances in which the dreamer becomes 
aware of persons or events of which he thinks he had no 
previous knowledge, but which are subsequently found to 
have a real existence, the supposition is raised that the 
dream was the result of unconscious cerebration — in reality 
the facts had been previously communicated to the dreamer, 
at a time when his mind was pre-occupied, and they had 
thus unconsciously to himself gained a lodgment in his 
brain, to be reproduced in dreams, by the tenacious mem- 
ory which holds fast to impressions too slight to make 
themselves felt in waking hours. Thus we may have 
knowledge of some things in our dreams, of which we have 
no consciousness when awake. 

It is a matter of quite general belief that anything 
dreamed three ni'ghts in succession is certain to come to 
pass. It is obvious to remark that we are quite likely to 
dream again the dream which has made a strong impres- 
sion upon us. We dream often of those things which are 
most in our minds. I have myself been so strongly im- 
pressed by a dream as to go on dreaming about it, after its 
action was completed. Yet there have been well-authen- 



DREAMS. 123 

ticated instances of the triple dream coming true. Thus 
a gentleman, whose veracity no one would doubt, writes : 
"When a boy, away from home at school, I had waited 
long for tidings from an older brother, supposed to be at 
that time in California, but of whose exact whereabouts no 
information had been received for about a year. Three 
nights in succession I dreamed that he had returned and 
that in crossing the Isthmus he had contracted fever, arriv- 
ing in New York very sick, so that my father was obliged 
to go for him and bring him home ; that he lay sick in a 
certain room in the house attended by our family physi- 
cian, and finally died. Without any intimation of his re- 
turn, the third morning after the dreams, 1 received a tel- 
e^^ram informins: me of his return and death exactly as I 
had dreamed it." 

There is a class of dreams, partaking of the nature of 
visions, which, if we are to suppose them well authenti- 
cated, it is very difficult to explain by any of the sugges- 
tions here made, or as having any other than a supernatu- 
ral origin. I refer to alleged instances in which murders 
have been revealed by persons, — living far removed from 
the scene, and having no knowledge of the deed or the 
circumstances, — seeing the entire transaction in a dream, 
with all the accessories of time and place, and afterwards, 
when the fact of such a murder has come to their knowl- 
edge, recognizing the spot with all its surroundings. We 
have, of course, a disposition to take such statements with 
many grains of salt, yet they are made with great circum- 
stantiality and are beUeved by many. 



124 FRATEBNITY PAPERS. 

With all the explanations we can give or imagine, there 
remains an unexplained element of mystery in these so- 
called supernatural dreams. It is easy for the physiolo- 
gist to say that soft dreams are a slight irritation of the 
brain ; frightful dreams are a sign of determination of 
blood to' the head, and that dreams of blood and red objects 
are signs of inflammatory conditions. But such causes are 
insufficient to account for coherent mental phenomena, the 
circumstances of which are marvellously verified by subse- 
quent experience. It is possible that science may yet so 
far extend its researches as to be able to give a rational 
explanation of all these phenomena. Until it does, it may 
be allowable to suppose that some subtle brain-wave,scarcely 
more wonderful than the electric telegraph, may convey 
impressions to and from kindred minds. Some impalpable 
element of the ether that surrounds us may act on mind 
in favorable conditions. Why may not the spirit that feels 
and thinks, have its own methods of communication aside 
from those which pertain to the physical universe as we 
understand it ? Surely such a supposition involves nothing 
more incredible than the theory that all the phenomena of 
dreams are the work of inert matter. 

Setting aside any advantages supposed to be derived 
from this class of visitations, the question may be asked, 
What is the use of dreams ? What purpose do they serve 
in the economy of man's existence ? The activity of the 
mind during sjumber involves some consumption of power ; 
is there any compensating advantage arising from it? The 



DREAMS. 125 

opinion generally prevails, I think, that dreams are but 
idle vagaries of the mind, without benefit or purpose. 
But yet when Ave reflect that there is no waste of power 
in the machinery of the universe, it is not unreasonable to 
suppose that even the action of the mind in sleep is not 
without a purpose. God might have given us dreamless 
slumber, and the fact that the mind continues in some 
degree active during sleep is evidence of design and use. 
There may yet be a science of the right interpretation of 
dreams. If, as Professor Shaler remarks, "it is only by 
studying the behavior of the mind during the coming and 
going of sleep that we can hope to understand the peculiar 
relations of the will to the rest of the mental faculties ;" 
if "it is only in that part of our lives that we can expect 
to trace, however dimly, the development of those powers 
with which we find ourselves possessed;" if "there only 
can we hope to see with our own eyes the long perspective 
of our mental history" — then surely our dreams should not 
pass unobserved, for in what way other than these does 
the mind manifest itself "during the coming and going of 
sleep ?" It may be well to think of our dreams as one 
before us thought of them : "I will not lightly pass over 
my very dreams ; so neither night nor day shall be spent 
unprofitably ; the night shall teach me what I am, the day 
what I should be ; for Sleep is Death's younger brother, 
and so like him that I never dare trust him without my 
prayers." 

It has seemed to me that there are some lessons to be 



126 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

derived from dreams, which at the risk of unduly length- 
ening this paper I will briefly state. 

Firsts we may learn from them those things which have 
made the deepest impressions upon our minds, which have 
most influenced our thoughts and actions. In our waking 
hours a multiplicity of impressions are received, and we 
are at the time scarcely conscious of those which sink 
deepest into our being. The school-boy thinks lightly of 
his sports and his companions, and is all unconscious that in 
life's declining years it is those scenes and those boyhood 
friends that will shine brightest in his memory. So come 
back to us in our dreams the scenes, the associations, the 
companions, that have most impressed themselves upon our 
being. Thus Southey, as proof of how little he had learned 
at Oxford, says — ''I never remember to have dreamt of 
Oxford — a sure proof of how little it entered into my moral 
being ; of school, on the contrary, I dream perpetually." 

Again, dreams may reveal to us something of the con- 
dition of our physical organization, of our bodily health. 
All have had experience of the distressing dreams which 
come in sickness, and render the hours which should be 
restful more wearing than even those of conscious pain. 
In my own case the dreams of illness have not only taken 
on the most ludicrously painful aspect, but they have at 
times been accompanied by a gloom, an awe. a mystery, 
a horror of situation, an all-pervading and overwhelming 
weight of depression, that in waking hours can be associ- 
ated only with the infernal regions — if any such exist, out- 



DREAMS. 127 

side the mind of man. But dreams are not only colored 
and deepened by sickness, they foretell it. The derange- 
ments of the physical system are revealed by them, when 
as yet they have scarcely made themselves apparent in 
waking hours. The brain feels the sympathetic trouble in 
sleep, and so foretells the impending calamity in its dreams, 
before it has waking consciousness of it. They are some- 
times found to go before a severe bodily illness, of which 
they thus serve to give warning. Dr. Maudsley remarks 
that "an outbreak of acute mania of an elated character 
is sometimes preceded by dreams of a joyous and elated 
character, and sad and gloomy dreams, in like manner, 
often go before and presage an attack of melancholia." 
Thus by taking note of our dreams we may be enabled to 
ward off, or prepare for, an attack of illness. 

Yet again, it is the remark of Sir Benjamin Brodie, that 
"dreams are at any rate, an exercise of the imagination, 
and one effect of them may be to increase the activity of 
that important faculty during our waking hours." "Young 
man," said an old poet to an individual who brought him 
a specimen of his verses, "Do you dream ? Because if 
jou do not, you may never hope for a successful exercise 
in poetry of the imaginative faculty." In sleep the imag- 
ination is active, and it may thus receive a certain stimu- 
lus, through dreams, in persons in whom the faculty has 
little other excitation, and may thus be kept alive. And 
what a dull world this would be without the play of imag- 
ination I 



128 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

But, after all, it has seemed to me that the most impor- 
tant service dreams may render us is in the revelation of 
character. "Know thyself" is the aphorism of the ages^ 
and as our dreams are influenced by our prevailing inclina- 
tions, so they may help us to form a right estimate of our 
own characters. The poet wished some power — 

" wad the giftie gie us, 



To see oursels' as others see us.' 



This mirror may be held up to us in dreams, and it may 
reveal more even than others see in us. We never so 
outside of ourselves in our dreams. They are always 
colored by our own personality. Whatever we are enters 
into them. "The coward never dreams that he is valiant, 
or the brave man that he is a coward ; the sordid man has 
no generous emotions in the land of shadows, nor does the 
free-handed, hospitable man become a churl in his sleep." 
Hidden traits may come out, powers of which we are 
scarcely conscious maybe revealed, but we are always our- 
selves, we never lose our personal identity. 

More than this, dreams may reveal to us inherited traits. 
A striking instance of this occurred in the experience of 
a friend of mine, who could not understand why in his 
dreams he was always weighed down by a sense of abase- 
ment, humility, and unworthiness. He was rarely con- 
scious of this feeling in his working hours, though to others 
it was apparent that he was a shy, retiring, modest man. 
He kncAV he was not a forth- putting man, and sometimes 
wondered why he could never feel himself quite on an 



DREAMS. 129 

equality with his fellows, why there was in him a lack of 
self-confidence which others possessed. But this feeling 
was strongest in his dreams. At last a fact came to him 
which gave him the key to his dreams and his character. 
It was made known to him that while he was yet in his 
mother's womb, a circumstance occurred, which, whether 
with due reason or otherwise, gave her a sense of humility 
and unworthiness ; she doubtless brooded upon it ; it was 
impressed upon the unformed mind of her unborn child, 
and colored all his life, though revealed to him most clearly 
in his dreams. 

Such are some of the apparent uses of dreams. In the 
words of another, "it would assuredly be presumptuous to 
say that they may not answer some still further purpose in 
the economy of percipient and thinking beings." "They 
have been a neglected study ; nevertheless it is a study 
w^hich is full of promise of abundant fruit when it shall be 
earnestly undertaken in a painstaking and methodical way 
by well-trained and competent observers." It may reveal 
to us that we do vibrate in unison with more subtle influ- 
ences of earth and sky than we can yet measure in our 
philosophy. 



CONVERSATION, 



If, in a mixed company, the question were asked, what 
is the greatest enjoyment of life ? the answers would be as 
various as the tastes and pursuits of the individuals pres- 
ent. Fortunately for us all there is more than one road to 
happiness — though many of them are full of bogs and pit- 
falls. Some men find pleasure in a fast horse, many in the 
accumulation of money, and many more in the spending of 
it. Sensual pleasures aside, what is that exercise of our 
powers which confers the purest and most lasting pleasure, 
the highest earthly happiness ? It should come logically, 
from the employment of our highest faculties, — and not 
merely from one, but from all of them. The eye is an 
avenue of delight to the mind, the ear is the inlet of 
knowledge, and the brains is the seat of consciousness. 
But we may grow weary of seeing, tired of hearing, and 
become morbid from self-introspection. But when eye and 
ear and intellect and speech are all employed in receiving 
and imparting that which interests and delights, the whole 
being is pleasurably excited. 

Does not conversation nieet these conditions, and is it not 



CONVERSATION. 131 

the most refined species of recreation — the most sparkling 
source of merriment, the most natural method of acquiring 
knowledge ? You have first the pleasure of good fellow- 
ship, of looking upon "old familiar faces," the sense of 
friendliness, of taking old acquaintances by the hand. And 
who has yet told us how much of our happiness comes from 
associations, past and present ? Secondly there is the de- 
light of hearing some new fact, or explanation of an old one ; 
the witty mot, the ready repartee, the apt anecdote, or the 
clear elucidation of a principle. Thirdly, there is the en- 
joyment of exercising our own wits, defending our own 
views — and compelling other people to listen to us. And 
are we not all very much like the man who said "I take 
c/reat interest in my own concerns, I assure you I do ?" 

Reading is a solitary pleasure — I might say vice, as it is 
often indulged in. Meditation is apt to run into moral hy- 
pochondria. Conversation dispels the mist of morbid self- 
consciousness, rubs off the rust of inaction, gives our minds 
the needed stimulus of other minds, the oxygen of intellect. 
It quickens our thoughts from a heavy amble into a gallop, 
and enables us to get over more ground in an hour than in 
weeks of solitary mooning meditation. A really fine talk 
between half a dozen well-matched and thoroughly culti- 
vated people, who discuss an interesting subject with the 
manifold wealth of allusions, arguments and illustrations, is 
a sort of mental Derby day wherein our brains are excited 
to their utmost speed. "Know thyself" is the aphorism of 
the ages, but can we find ourselves out by self-contempla- 



132 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

plation ? No : rather by measuring ourselves with other 
men ; by striving with them in the arena of intellect. 

I can conceive of great pleasure in the pursuit of some 
absorbing and congenial occupation ; in the delight of the 
artist as he sees the colors take form from his brush, or 
the graceful figure start into seeming life beneath his 
chisel ; in the moment of triumph when the patient labors 
of the inventor are rewarded bj success and his machine, 
almost a thing of life, stands perfected before him ; in the 
flush and glow of the philosopher when some secret of nature 
is at last revealed by his experiments. But all these are 
solitary pleasures. They do not broaden life. They do 
not take us out of our own narrow aims and ambitions. It 
is necessary at times to leap over our petty ring-fence of 
personal hopes, fears, and emotions of all kinds, and roam 
with our neighbors over their dominions, and into farther 
out-lying regions of pubHc and universal interest. This 
comes from the contact with other minds, the exchange of 
thoughts with our fellow men, in a word from intelligent 
conversation. 

Being thus a source of exquisite pleasure, a means of. 
self-culture, the most natural and interesting mode of ac- 
quiring knowledge, and a powerful instrument in influenc- 
ing public opinion, in enlightening the popular mind, and 
in bringing about needed reforms and improvements, the 
question becomes pertinent. Why is the art of conversa. 
tion so little cultivated? On all sides Ave are told that it 
is well-nigh extinct. Good dinner-table talkers are become 



CONVERSATION. 133 

rare. We occasionally meet with a person who says as 
good a thing as Charles Lamb or Sydney Smith ever 
uttered, — but stately, old-fashioned conversation has died 
out. In these days nobody talks as Dr. Johnson did, and 
one would hardly be tolerated if he should attempt it. It 
is really melancholy to reflect that the era of such delight- 
ful talk as Boswell, Tom Moore, and Greville have recorded, 
is passing away. The London Spectator said not long ago, 
that the appearance of a wit like Luttrell or Sydney Smith, 
in a London drawing-room would create as great a sensa- 
tion as a bustard in Piccadilly. Men seem to have largely 
adopted the opinion of the Scotchman, who in the days of 
gambling and hard-drinking, was heard to say : "I tell 
you what, sir, I just think that conversation is the bane 
of society." 

In this country, though we abound in orators, we have 
few good conversers. Conversation is little cultivated 
either in our homes or in the social circle. One of the 
most melancholy spectacles in life is a company gathered 
of an evening for social enjoyment and sitting solemnly 
staring at each other for the lack of something to say, or 
the art of saying it. In the rural districts such occasions 
are positively dismal and funereal in their aspects. The 
farmers, awkward in their unaccustomed Sunday coats and 
clean shirts, sit bolt upright in .the straight-back chairs as 
if solemnly waiting for the services to begin, and when the 
girls on the front stairs strike up the usual pennyroyal hymn, 
one naturally looks around for the corpse. If it were not 



134 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

that man is blessed with a stomach it is probable that 
social converse would die out altogether on such occasions, 
and the company would sit like so many mummies, or a 
Quaker meeting, until the spirit moved them to depart to 
their several homes. Happily with the distribution of 
"refreshments" tongues are loosened, and there is some 
little flow of talk, such as it is, but it is melancholy to 
reflect that the highest intellectual pleasure is subordinated 
to the grossest physical needs. 

Among others, three causes may be mentioned as occa- 
sioning this dearth of conversational powers among our 
people. The first may be said to be that spirit of repres- 
sion and asceticism which prevailed among our Puritan 
ancestors, which looked with forbidding eye on all vain 
words and trifling conversation, and united with the prac- 
tice of the severest economy, in regarding as idle and use- 
less everything which did not tend to immediate profit. 
This feeling found expression in the household axiom, "Let 
your victuals stop your mouth," by which the inquiring 
spirit of childhood was repressed, and the social meal, 
around which should play the flash of wit, and the inter- 
change of amusing and instructive remark, was converted 
into an occasion of silent and solemn gormandizing ; as if 
the chief ofiice of the mouth was to swallow victuals, and 
the chief end of man to digest them. 

This somber style of dining was not confined to the mid- 
dle classes. Charles Jared Ingersoll relates that when a 
boy, playing around the residence of General Washington 



CON VERS A riON. 1 ?^5 

in Market street, Philadelphia, Avith some of the children 
connected with the Washington family, he was persuaded 
into the house, and dined at the table of the great man, 
with his wife, and his military aids or secretaries. No con- 
versation took place during the meal. Washington filled 
his own glass of Madeira silently, passed the decanter to 
his lady, and then took wine with the guests, the boys 
included. It was a long and quiet repast, and the boys 
were glad when it w^as over. 

Secondly, the almost universal circulation of books and 
newspapers, in our day, has left us neither time nor mate- 
rial for conversation. Men save their best thoughts for the 
press, they cannot afford to squander them on diners-out, 
and everybody who is not writing a book is reading one. 
If we talk at all it is of books, which other men have writ- 
ten, rather than what we have thought. The press has 
silenced the tongue, and the communication of ideas goes 
on by machinery. The omnivorous reporter is abroad, and 
what he leaves ungleaned, as well as much that he does 
not leave, is not worth picking up. When all the occur- 
rences of the day, down to the building of a pig-pen or 
the shingling of your neighbor's barn, are already in print, 
and have been commented upon by the editor-in-chief, what 
is there left to talk about ? If there happens to be a man 
at large who is supposed to be in possession of a state 
secret, or to know something that other people do not, the 
interviewer — that highest product of Yankee inquisitive- 
ness — the familiar of the modern inquisition — proceeds at 



136 FEATERNITT PAPERS. 

once to put him to the torture, nor leaves him until he has 
wrung from him the last drop of information. He talks 
for the million. All our conversation is in print before we 
have time to speak it. It is just what we were going to 
say, but the lightning presses ai-e too fast for us. Then 
again, when every nook and corner of the universe is ex- 
plored by the long arm and multitudinous fingers of the 
electric telegraph there comes the necessity of condensing 
its enormous budget of facts. "Boil it down," cries the 
editor in despair. "Be brief," is the word passed along 
the line, and hence it has become the fashion to talk short, 
and long flowing periods are considered wearisome. 

But, perhaps, after all, the principal reason of the dearth 
of good conversers, is the neglect of the cultivation of 
leisure. Conversation implies not only education, but ob- 
servation and reflection. These can come only from well 
employed leisure — the mellow hours of life when thoughts 
ripen into speech. But leisure does not enter into the plan 
of our hurried, headlong life. If we take it at all it is by 
snatches, as boys take stolen fruit, and with a similar 
sense of guilt in the enjoyment of it. The busy man is 
the model citizen and the busier the better, until a stroke 
of paralysis lays him low, when he is no longer of much 
account. 

Men and women engage in the strife and turmoil of 
business, and the unflagging industry of labor, with a zeal 
and assiduity truly laudable, but scarcely spare a thought 
to, much less bestow any serious or systematic attention up- 



coy VER SA TION. 137 

on, the time when nature will compel them to lay aside 
work and recruit their tired energies. It is then, when the 
animal impulses are all gone by, that conversation comes 
as a relief to the tedium of life. But, how few of us make 
this provision for old age — the golden leisure laid up to 
shed a cheerful glow upon life's evening hours. When 
enforced idleness comes there is no provision made to stave 
off its wearisomeness, much less for its enjoyment. The 
fact is that while we respect labor we most unjustly despise 
leisure. Most work has something of hard compulsion in 
it, and while it gives a firm basis to character, fails to round 
it off and bring it into beautiful proportions. This can only 
be the work of complete liberty, and must depend greatly 
upon the existence of leisure and the use made of it. The 
over busy man who thrusts this out of sight and reserves 
no time for social converse, cuts off his real progress, hin- 
ders his development, narrows down his mind to a single 
line of thought, and thus renders himself just so much less 
effective as a power in society and so much less capable of 
happiness as an individual. It is a thought of Landor's 
that few know how sweet and sacred a thing is idleness for 
the reason that so many have not prepared themselves to 
enjoy it. Few cultivate the leisure which is essential to 
conversation and so we come to be a busy, short spoken 
people, and lose the finest relish of life. For was not Goethe 
right when he said ''one ought every day a't least to hear 
a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and if 
it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words ?" 



138 FBATEBNITY PAPEBS. 

"'There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew 
them as we will." The innate tendency of our nature will 
have vent even when we neglect or seek to repress them. 
Man is a talking animal, and some speech will go on in 
spite of all admonitions to silence, or over devotion to busi- 
ness. Two institutions, which may perhaps be said to be 
spontaneous, have preserved for us in New England the 
faculty of speech. These are the country store and the 
sewing circle. 

The first of these deserves a paper by itself instead of 
the paragraph, which only, I can give it. It is an institu- 
tion by itself — the center not only of trade but of amuse- 
ment, of local news, of gossip and of high debate. What 
the theatre Avas to the Greeks, what the forum was to the 
Romans, the country store is to our rural population. 
Away back in the country where they have no amusements 
at all, save an occasional funeral, or the annual visit of the 
circus, where the people live hard, bald, dry lives, and die 
hard, bald, dry deaths ; where the men work from early 
morning until sundown with their silent cattle in sohtary 
fields, scarcely exchanging a word with a fellow being dur- 
ing the live-long day, life would utterly stagnate, and the 
power of speech be lost, were it not for occasional visits to 
the country store. 

At nightfall the farmer washes up, harnesses Dobbin, 
and drives over to "the Corner." There he finds all the 
loungers, all the idlers, and all the village gossips, as well 
as those who go to buy molasses, nails, tobacco and raisins, 



CONVERSA TION. 1 3 9 

and there all loiter, gossip and listen in the convenient rest- 
ing-place of the countrv-store. Hither comes the village 
lawyer for his letters, for the country store is also the post- 
office — and the parson drops in for his weekly paper, and 
the doctor calls on his rounds, and the old family nags, 
long-tailed and bob-tailed, stand drowsily before the door, 
while the exchange of news and gossip goes on with the bar- 
gaining inside. But it is in the long winter evenings that 
the country store is in full play as a conversational center. 
Then it holds its regular re-unions. Then the loungers 
and the gossips and the small politicians gather around the 
box stove, seated on the heads of kegs or the narrow ends 
of nail and candle boxes, while the boys perch on the 
smooth, worn counters, their feet swinging off, or find rest- 
ing places on the barrel heads in the dark corners. In 
the genial warmth tongues are loosened, the crops are dis- 
cussed, the state of the roads is canvassed, and Farmer 
Hayseed remarks that "If suthin' isn't done to that hole 
over by Jerdon's it'll be mighty bad 'doing' there 'afore 
spring," and Farmer Hodge inquires if "they aint never 
goin' to fix up that old school-house over'n the Libby neigh- 
borhood?" Town affairs are overhauled and the doin^^s of 
the "selictmen" are sharply criticized. Then perhaps some 
bit of local scandal opens all ears, or the coarse jest goes 
round, or the wag of the neighborhood plays off his accus- 
tomed practical joke of slyly filling the coat-tail pocket of 
some earnest talker with a junk of fat pork purloined from 
a convenient barrel, while the boys snicker in the dark 



140 FRATEBNITY PA PEES. 

corners. Bat it is just before election that the talk becomes 
most earnest. Then argument runs high. The partisans 
on both sides stand stoutly up to the work. "Figgers'* 
are produced to prove that molasses is ten cents more per 
gallon under Republican rule than it was when the "Dem- 
mercrats" were in power. That corners the opponent. 
There is no getting away from that. Then 'Squire Riggs 
takes up the talk, or Deacon Blodgett makes a sally, or 
Captain Muggs starts a new train, and they are all in 
for it, every one. These are the people for whom politi- 
cal newspapers are printed, and no others. For them were 
originally published the debates in Congress, which they 
are as ready to quote as any eager deacon ever was to 
hurl texts from the Scriptures at the head of his opponent 
or questioner. The country store is, in short, a little Con- 
gress in which the affairs of the nation are discussed, and 
its policy shaped in no small degree. 

Thus even in this rude form the power of conversation 
is shown in breaking the dull monotony of country life, in 
affording amusement and relaxation to overtaxed men, in 
diffusing intelligence, keeping up an interest in public 
affairs, and in preventing the common mind from lagging 
too far behind the times. The early closing movement in 
the country would be like caulking up the last crevice in 
the Black Hole of Calcutta, and condemning our entire 
rural population to a state of mental asphyxia. 

Of the rival institution of the sewing circle it becomes 
me to speak with that delicacy and modesty which should 



CONVERSATION. 141 

characterize the discussion of feminine affairs by the mas- 
culine gender. But let us consider the necessity of it. 
If the lives of men in the country are bald and dry, what 
shall we say of the condition of women ? Condemned to a 
round of ceaseless toil, in cheerless back rooms, sedulously 
secluded from whatever of movement and life the little 
travelled highway may offer, with neighbors few and far 
between, their opportunities for social intercourse are rare 
and are prized accordingly. Women must talk though they 
may not be idle. It would be considered a scandalous 
waste of time for them to come together with no other pur- 
pose than to indulge in the amusement of conversation. 
Hence comes the sewing circle as a disguise for the Talk- 
ing Match. Fortunately for the convenient fiction the 
meeting-house is always in want of a new carpet or a coat 
of paint, and woman's helpful hands are as ready as her 
tongue. Far be it from me to disparage her endeavors ; 
in public spirit she often shames the other sex, and many 
a worthy charity, or pubHc improvement would languish 
but for her always willing aid. 

What I am most concerned with is the sewing circle as 
a conversational institution, and of this I must perforce 
speak with caution. As the butcher said, respecting 
"sarsengers," "idees have got afloat in the public mind 
concerning sewing circles." There is a suspicion of gos- 
sip, of tittle-tattle, nay, even of slander attached to them, 
and the masculine mind affects to regard them with a feel- 
ing akin to contempt. But what would you have ? Shall 



142 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

the country store indulge in its coarse joke, and the sew- 
ing circle be denied its little spice of gossip ? Life, espe- 
cially country life, must have some seasoning, or it will 
become "flat, stale and unprofitable" indeed. Besides I 
am led to suspect that the sewing circle has been slandered 
in this regard, and that the feminine mind, when it unbends 
itself, is not insensible to the charms of genial humor or 
racy anecdote. 

When, on rare occasions, I have so far gratified the in- 
quisitiveness of the feminine mind as to what goes on at the 
club, as to impart one of those spicy and exhilarating, but 
entirely innocent little anecdotes with which its members 
enliven those weighty discussions of "fate, fore-knowledge 
and free-will," which chiefly occupy their minds, I have 
been surprised and delighted at the ready response, "That 
will be a capital story for me to tell at the sewing circle !" 
I take this as proof conclusive that the sewing circle, how- 
ever amenable it may be to the charge of gossip, is not 
without capabilities of a higher culture and a genial appre- 
ciation of good humor. "* 

This brings us to the consideration of the conversational 
powers of woman. In accordance with masculine selfish- 
ness and insolence she was first admitted to the table to 
serve as a carver of the meats, and was banished with the 
introduction of the wine. The false chivalry which re- 
garded her as a brainless angel permitted no conversation 
in her presence, save that which wandered softly among 
flowers and airy compliments. She was denied the higher 



CONVERSATION. 143 

education, as being incapable of it, and as a matter of 
course, often justified the popular estimate of her conver- 
sational powers. The story of the early days of Mary 
Somerville, and the difficulties she encountered in the pur- 
suit of that mathematical knowledge for which she after- 
wards became so distinguished, strikingly illustrates the pre- 
judice against learned women which prevailed in the last 
century, and which still shuts the doors of some colleges in 
the faces of young girls. In our day it is found that 
women talk in society, on the whole, quite as well as men. 
They arc not quite so epigrammatic, and sometimes lack 
condensation, but they are decidedly more sprightly, and 
tell any story which requires quiet dramatic expression a 
good deal better. The brilliancy of Madame De Stael's 
conversation has passed into a proverb ; it triumphed so 
far over the plainness of her features, that Curran said she 
had the power of talking herself into a beauty — an extraor- 
dinary gift, which it must be confessed all women do not 
possess. Her chief fault as a talker was a race-horse 
rapidity of tongue — a quality which many women do pos- 
sess. On the question as to whether Mrs. Brown has got 
into her new house, or whether it was Mrs. Jones's second 
or third daughter that had the mumps, and above and 
beyond all, on the plague of servants, there is no limit to 
her flow of speech. Yet she is capable of repartee and 
of ready retort. When Napoleon, who in his treatment of 
women was a brute, said to a lady who had been an object 
t)f gossip, "Well, madam, are you as fond of men as ever ?" 



144 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

she had enough presence of mind to answer, "Yes, sire, 
when thej are }3olite." The Emperor illustrated the little- 
ness of his mind by depriving her husband of his place three 
days after. 

There can be no question that a prime element of con- 
versation is lost by the separation of the sexes. The talk 
may be freer after the ladies have withdrawn from the 
table, but it is also coarser, and gentlemen muddle them- 
selves with wine while the ladies are in a state of mental 
inanition in the drawing-room. One can sympathize with 
Madame De Stael, who on one occasion, after long waiting 
for the return of the gentlemen from the table, mattered, 
"this is intolerable," and sent word for the gentlemen to 
come up. The advantages resulting from the co-education 
of the sexes, are now generally admitted, and there can 
be no doubt that sex is an important element in conversa- 
tion. No circle of conversers can be complete without the 
presence of both men and women. T. W. Higginson has 
said that what contributed more than anything to the pop- 
ularity of the Radical Club was the real zest given to the 
conversation by the presence of both sexes. So compli- 
mentary was always the opening of the comments on the 
paper read, and so keen the subsequent criticism, that Mrs. 
Howe once compared it to the ancient punishment, whereby 
an offender w^as first smeared with honey and then hung 
up to be stung to death by wasps. 

The female element in conversation cannot but have a 
refining and brightening influence. Women wake up talk- 



CON VERSA TION. 145 

ativeness in men — an attribute of the sex which is too 
often overlooked. On the other hand the effect of mascu- 
line conversation, when it is not of the tiowery and compli- 
mentary sort, tends to the strengthening of the female 
mind and the freeing of it from the narrowing influences 
of prudery. The frank interchange of opinions cannot 
but be beneficial to both sexes, and the meeting of either 
apart for purposes of conversation must be regarded as a 
mistake. It is the habit of men to underrate the intellect 
of woman. , If its grasp is not so wide as that of men, it 
has often a keener insight. 

But it is said that men and women cannot meet on an 
equality in conversation because the talk will inevitably 
degenerate into compliments on the part of the gentlemen 
— the element of sex will enter into it ; and that the best 
talk comes only Avhen men get beyond the region of com- 
pliment, and converse familiarly, not sparing each other's 
foibles or peculiarities. 

I reply that this is a matter of education — education of 
men as well as of women. Men indulge in complimentary 
talk to women because of their low conception of the fe- 
male mind, quite as much as from any feeling of gallantry. 
They have never considered women as their equals intel- 
lectually, and so think to please them with flattery, which 
every sensible woman takes as an insult. Let us give 
woman the opportunity to converse intelligently before we 
decry her colloquial powers. Let men lift themselves up 
to the level of fair play in this matter ; let them divest 



146 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

themselves of that false pride which makes it shameful in 
their ejes to be excelled by woman, let it be understood 
that she is to meet man on an equality, and let her stand 
the test. This is a position up to which man has to edu- 
cate himself, as w^oman has to educate herself to take her 
rightful position by his side. Give her the opportunity, 
and my word for it, it will be found that she can give and 
take in the game of conversation with the best of us. 

How long is it since it was held that woman could not 
Avrite, could not preach, could not practice medicine — and 
yet she has accomplished something in all these directions 
in the face of greater difficulties than ever men encoun- 
tered in the pursuit of the same professions. Read the 
letters of John and Abigail Adams, and you will see that 
those of the wife, in strength of thought, in intelligent 
interest in public affairs, do not suffer in comparison with 
those of her distinguished husband. And yet so low was 
the conception of female intellect in her day. so little atten- 
tion was paid to the education of women, that she never 
was sent to any school. Female education in the best 
families then went no farther than readinor. writini>; and 
arithmetic. Men have denied woman the opportunity 
for the full development of her powers, and then compla- 
cently declared that she had no powers to develope. They 
have surfeited her with sugar plums and then declared 
that she had no stomach for hearty victuals. They scru- 
pulously refrain from intelligent conversation with her, and 
then proclaim that she cannot talk ! No ! They don't say 



CONVERSATION. 147 

that ; it is generally admitted, I believe, on all hands, that 
woman can talk — but it is held that she cannot sustain 
herself in an intellectual contest with man. As society is 
now constituted, perhaps it is true that the great majority 
of women could not shine in a conversational contest, but 
many of them could contribute a fair share of entertain- 
ment in such an intellectual bout, and it only needs the 
mingling of the sexes on an equal footing, in this matter, 
to so educate woman's colloquial powers, as to make her 
share in the highest style of conversation, by no means its 
least valuable or attractive element. 

Men do not always even as things are now, deal in com- 
pliments, in their intercourse with women, and when they 
lay them aside they often find themselves at a disadvan- 
tage. They do well to stick to compliments ; it is their best 
hold. They have woman on the weak side there, and are 
not themselves exposed to any trial of strength. When 
they come out of their covert of flowers they do not always 
fare so well. Men, for instance, do not usually compliment 
their wives,' in their private intercourse with them, and such 
a thing has been heard of as their coming out second best 
in the marital discussions which go on at times in the best 
regulated families. If husbands would get together and 
honestly exchange experiences, the conclusion arrived at on 
the whole, I think, would be, that women can hold their 
own pretty well in a nip-and-tuck conversational bout. Ma- 
ny, I am afraid, would sometimes have to confess that they 
would have done better if they had taken their wives' advice 



148 FBATEENITY PAPERS. 

on certain occasions, even where matters of business were 
concerned, as well as that more than once thej had been 
talked over to plans and projects which in their souls thej 
abhorred. As to wives, how many know that their husbands 
are fools, and yet at the same time are exceedingly careful 
that their husbands shall not know that they know it ! 

But again it is said that it would not do to admit women 
to men's conversational circles because in their discursive 
talk the subject in hand would be wholly lost to sight. 
They would wander away from it over the face of the whole 
earth. 

But here again I appeal to the experience of husbands 
as to whether women cannot stick to the point when they 
have a purpose in view ? Did you ever know them to wan- 
der from a favorite subject of conversation when they had 
something to gain by it V 1 go no further into this some- 
what delicate investigation — it is sufficient to suggest it to 
the minds of those of my readers who have had experience 
in matrimonial life. 

But what if, in conversation, women do wander a Httle 
from the subject in hand — it is only to enrich and adorn it 
with the ornaments of fancy which are as necessary as the 
beams of argument, to the completeness of the structure. 
Conversation is not to be cast into iron moulds. Like the 
mountain rill, which while yet ever keeping its course to the 
sea, meanders through green fields, now broadens to a pel- 
lucid pool, anon narrows to a rushing torrent between im- 
pending banks, receiving on either hand the contributions 



CON VER SA TION. 149 

of smaller streams flowing in its direction — conversation 
should sway with the suggestions of the topic, gathering 
to itself all themes that serve to illustrate it, or expand its 
scope. Discursiveness is an element needed to make con- 
versation elastic, and prevent its degenerating into mere 
controversy, in which pride of opinion, so inimical to all 
true conversation, largely predominates. 

But, after all, let me not be misunderstood. I am not 
arguing that woman is or may be, fitted to shine in conver- 
sation in the same way that men do — that she will always 
be as deep in thought, as strong in argument, as rich in 
anecdote and allusion. I only urge that while she may 
contribute something of all these elements, she will also 
add a quality peculiar to herself — a grace, an archness, a 
brightness, a keenness born of her mental constitution, — 
and, above all, a readiness of speech tending to arouse the 
slu<>;o;ishness of man's slower nature. This feminine ele- 
ment of conversation is what is needed to its completeness, 
and is only to be obtained when the sexes meet on the 
plane of a perfect and fearless quality. 

Wine, rather than woman, has been regarded as the best 
promoter of conversation. But that brilliancy which springs 
from artificial stimulants rather than from the natural flow 
of spirits, and play of intellect, is dearly purchased, and 
never genuine. Sydney Smith, who abjured wine because 
he found it interfered with the full play of his colloquial 
powers, continued to the last the most brilliant of talkers, 
always bubbling over with ideas, mad with spirits, with no 



150 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

elaborate impromptus, no cut-and-dry repartees, firing as 
he said right across the table, and ready to talk upon any 
subject that was started, never starting one for the sake 
of talking upon it. On the other hand what a melancholy 
picture is that of Theodore Hook, priming himself at the 
club with tumblers of cold brandy and Avater for the en- 
counter with Sydney Smith, and breaking down pitiably in 
the end. The only talk that is worth much is that which 
comes from a full mind and the natural play of the spirits. 
It is urged in behalf of wane and other stimulants that 
they produce an exhilaration of the spirits which enables 
one to exert his best powers, and also quickens the appre- 
ciation of them in others. But it seems to me that the 
best stimulus of all our powers is their own free exercise. 
We strengthen our arms by using them ; we sharpen our 
wits by contact with other men's minds. The Creator in 
bestowing upon us certain faculties could not have intended 
that their highest exercise should depend on artificial means, 
least of all on those agencies whose indisputable tendency 
is, in the end, to weaken and destroy them. The stimulus 
of wine is evanescent, and more and more is required to 
reproduce it. Beyond a certain point it dulls instead of 
quickens the intellectual powers, and towards that point it 
is ever dragging its votary. It was not that Theodore 
Hook took too much brandy on the occasion of his encoun- 
ter with Sydney Smith, that constitutes the lamentable fea- 
ture of his case, but that, having resorted to brandy as a 
stimulus in the first instance, he had inevitably reached 



CONVEESATION. 151 

that point where he could not take any without taking too 
much. This is the danger that hes in wait for all brilliant 
talkers and diners-out who rely on spirituous liquors as the 
source of their brilliancy. In how many instances have 
they degenerated into sots ! 

But again, the stimulus of wine produces a painful reac- 
tion, while that which follows the natural exercise of our 
powers is pleasant rather than painful — the agreeable repose 
which follows exertion. There is no headache, no heart- 
ache, and no shame in it. We have not to remember that 
we have laughed at nonsense instead of wit, nor that we 
have mistaken what is coarse and boisterous for true mirth- 
fulness and good fellowship. 

There cannot be needed any stimulus to give us the proper 
command of our faculties beyond good health, a good con- 
science and the proper occasion for their display. All that 
goes beyond this draws on the future and bankrupts our 
powers. Sydney Smith, the prince of humorists and con- 
versers, knew that the best of spirits did not come from 
the use of wine. On one occasion he said: "Now I mean 
not to drink one drop of wine to-day, and I shall be mad 
with spirits, I always am when I drink no wine. It is curi- 
ous the effect a thimblefull of wine has upon me ; I feel as 
flat as Blank's jokes ; it destroys my understanding ; I for- 
get the number of the Muses, and think them thirty-nine, 
of course, and only get myself right by repeating the lines, 
and finding 'Descend, ye thirty-nine,' two feet too long." 
As to the quahties which go to the production of good 



152 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

conversation, it is obvious that a prime requisite is con- 
.genialitj of spirits. As has been said, this is the office 
of a good conversational cook, who brings the right ingre- 
dients together. In a company of talkers each man plays 
his part. A club consisting of Johnson, Burke, Reynolds, 
Goldsmith and Garrick, was like a company of actors, each 
of whom understands the powers of all his colleagues, and 
is able to co-operate towards the general effect. They 
could understand each other; the humorist was in no dan- 
ger of being taken to speak seriously ; the man of special 
information could not have his pet subject snatched out of 
his mouth. On the other hand there was a sufficient 
amount of variety to save the members of the little circle 
from boring each other too much. 

In the webb of conversation the argumentative man may 
furnish the warp, but the wit should contribute the woof, 
sliding in a brilliant remark, like Luttrell, who when Moore 
was describing the ascent of a female aeronaut, who had not 
since been heard of, saying that when last seen she was 
still ascending, ascending, slipped in, "Handed out by Enoch 
and Elijah." Chesterfield's rule was a good one. "Pay 
your own reckoning, but do not treat the whole company, 
this being one of the very few cases in which people do not 
care to be treated, every one being fully convinced that he 
has wherewithal to pay. " Swift's favorite maxim was, 
"take as many half minutes as you can get, but never talk 
more than half a minute without pausing and giving others 
an opportunity to strike in." Yet the large discourser, pro- 



CON VERS A TION. \ 53 

vided he can keep himself within bounds, is quite as essen- 
tial as the sajer of good things, since a conversation made 
up of epigrams would be like a pudding composed wholly 
of plums. 

The misfortune of conversation is that it is but of the 
moment. Doubtless there have been good talkers since 
the world beo;an. Moses must have been a man of sood 
discourse, and Noah could have told us a thins; or two. In 
the days of Methuselah there was time to say a good thing 
and to laugh at it. Indeed some of the jokes of our day 
seem to have been in circulation since his time. But yet, 
of all the good things said since the flood how small is the 
record ! The best things were never written. We lament 
the loss of the Alexandrian library, but doubtless it was 
chiefly rubbish. In Naples, I have seen the charred parch- 
ments, of Pompeii unrolled with infinite patience, but there 
was nothing in them worth preserving. Men have not put 
all their wit and wisdom into books. Many philosophers 
have discoursed better than they have written. Of Mac- 
kenzie it was said that he put his melancholy into his books 
and saved his humor for his friends. The unwritten books 
of the world would be rare reading, as well as some that 
have been written and lost. Cicero was a brilliant talker, 
but the collection of his jests made by his freedman has 
perished. Selden was a learned man in his day, but we 
remember him now only by his table talk, fragments of 
which have been happily preserved. What would the 
world now care for Dr. Johnson if Boswell had not lived 



154 FBATERNITY PAPJEBS. 

and written ? Think of Shakespeare's talk reported with 
like fulness and accuracy ! Of those wit combats at the 
Mermaid, of which Beaumont has written, 

"We left an air behind us, which aU:»ne 
Was able to make the two next companies 
Right witty, though but downright fools ;" 

of all those flashes of wit and sentiment — those spoken fire- 
works — we have, alas ! not a scintillation. Coming down 
to the days of Sydney Smith, of what a brilliant company 
of diners-out do we find him the bright particular star. 
Luttrell, who gave this illustration of the English climate, 
"On a fine day, like looking up a chimney, on a rainy day, 
like looking down it ;" Jekyll, who at one of Lady Cork's 
parties, where she wore an enormous plume, said "she was 
exactly a shuttle-cock — all cork and feathers ;" the cyni- 
cal Rogers, of whom it was said that he made his way in 
the world, as Hannibal made his across the Alps, with vin- 
egar ; Macaulay, too, coming in with his occasional flashes 
of silence, and even Coleridge, with his everlasting mono- 
logue, who must after all have conversed with wondrous 
power, since it is recorded that the landlord of an inn of- 
fered him board and lodging free if he would only stay in 
the house and talk. 

Of Sheridan it is said that he made his witticisms in 
advance and kept thena by him with a patience quite mirac- 
ulous, till the exact moment when they might be brought 
forward with best effect. This accounts for his general 
silence in company, and the admirable things that came 



CONVERSATION. 155 

from him when he did speak. Yet some of his best sayings 
must have been impromptu. Thus when Lord Lauderdale 
said he would repeat some good thing which Sheridan had 
mentioned to him, the latter replied, "Pray don't, my dear 
Lauderdale ; a joke in your mouth is no laughing 7nat- 
tery In preparing his witticisms beforehand, Sheridan 
followed the learned example of my Lord Bacon, among 
whose papers, after his death, was found a collection of 
rejoinders and repartees, made, as he writes, "by way of 
provision or preparatory store for the furniture of speech 
and readiness of invention." Thus, supposing his oppo- 
nent to say — "You wander from the subject," — he is pre- 
pared with the retort — "But it was to follow you." Or, 
again, his opponent may say, "Come to the point," — 
"Why, I shall not find you there," is the cut-and dried 
response. Douglass Jerrold's wit was of the keenest, and 
most transparent character, and had an element of spon- 
taneity which needed no previous preparation. Thus when 
some one said of a person for whom he was trying to make 
interest, "Nature has written 'honest man' upon his face ;" 
"Then Nature must have had a very bad pen," was the 
prompt reply. At a ball, seeing a very tall gentleman 
waltzing with a very short lady, he said, "There's a mile 
dancing with a mile-stone." The author of an epic poem 
entitled, "A Descent into Hell," used to worry Jerrold 
very much. At last the wit grew irritated with the poet 
who, coming suddenly upon him with the question, "Ah, 
Jerrold! have you seen mv 'Descent into Hell?' " "No, 



156 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

but I should like to," was the caustic reply. This was wit 
of the keenest sort. There was more of humor in the 
reply of Sydney Smith to the church wardens when they 
wanted a wooden pavement around St. Paul's — "Lay ?/(?i/r 
heads together and the thing is done I" Samuel Foote, the 
actor, had a sharp wit and was unsparing in the use of it. 
''Well, Foote," said the Duke of Cumberland, one night 
in the green-room, "here I am, ready as usual to swallow 
all your good things." "Really," replied the wit, "your 
Royal Highness must have an excellent digestion, for you 
never bring any up again." The Duke of Norfolk, who' 
was rather too fond of the bottle, asked him in what new 
character he should go to the masquerade. "Go sober," 
said Foote. A rich contractor was holding forth on the 
instability of the world. "Can you account for it, sir," he 
asked, turning to Foote. "Well, not very clearly," he re- 
sponded, ''unless we suppose it was built by contract" — 
a hit not less appreciated in our day than in his. Gar- 
rick's meanness was notorious, and a gentleman speaking 
to Foote of Garrick having reflected upon some person's 
parsimony, ended by observing, "Why did he not take the 
beam out of his own eye, before attacking the mote in 
other people's ?" "Because," replied Foote, "he is not 
sure of selling the timber." "Where on earth can it be 
gone "r" said Foote, when Garrick dropped a guinea, and 
was searching for it in vain. " To the Devil, 1 think," 
answered Garrick, irritably. "Let you alone, David, for 
making a guinea go farther than any one else I" was the 
reply. 



CONVEBSATION. 157 

In this country we have had comparatively few good con- 
versers, and our collections of memorable sayings are but 
scanty. William Wirt has left on record his tribute to the 
colloquial powers of Dr. Franklin. Though he was sim- 
plicity itself, his wit was of the first order, and the stores 
of his mind were inexhaustible. Webster had a vein of 
humor, but few of his good sayings have been recorded. 
When Signor Blitz said to him, "Give [me one hundred 
thousand treasury notes to count, and watch closely, and 
you will find only seventy-five thousand when I return 
them." "Signor," responded Webster with animation, 
"There is no chance ; there are better magicians here than 
you ; there would not be fifty thousand left after their 
counting." We have abundance of evidence that this 
species of necromancy is still practiced at Washington. I 
remember ex-Senator Bradbury relating at a dinner table, 
an instance of Webster's apt use of quotation. He had 
come late to a ball given by Secretary Ewing, who among 
his friends was known as Solitude Ewing. Looking upon 
the disarranged tables and the broken fragments of the 
feast, and addressing the host, Webster exclaimed — 

"O, Solitude, where are the charms 
Which sages liave seen in your face? 
Better dwell in the midst of alarms, 
Than reign in this horrible place." 

Henry Clay delighted in anecdote, yet his stories, like his 
speeches, are forgotten. Thaddeus Stevens was strong in 
repartee and retort. Coi. Forney relates that when he 



158 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

lay upon his death-bed and felt the grim messenger fasten- 
ing upon him, John Hickman told him he was looking well. 
*'Ah, John I" was the quick reply, "it is not my appear- 
ance, but my disappearance that troubles me." A mem- 
ber of the House who was known for his uncertain course 
on all questions, and who often confessed that he never 
fully investigated a mooted point Avithout finding himself 
a neutral, asked for leave of absence. "Mr. Speaker," 
said Stevens, "I do not rise to object, but to suggest that 
the honorable member need not ask this favor, for he can 
easily pair off with himself." It is a singular illustration 
of the contradictions of human nature that Abraham Lin- 
coln, our most illustrious story-teller, was the saddest of 
men, yet his sense of the ridiculous Avas so keen that it 
bore him up under difficulties that would have broken down 
almost any other man. 

Good dinner table orators are more numerous among us 
-than good conversers. Our wits have run rather to public 
speaking than to conversation. It is worthy of considera- 
tion whether it would not be well to cultivate the former 
less and the latter more. That ready command of our re- 
sources so essential to success in the conflicts of life comes 
largely from practice in the art of conversation. "Read- 
ing," says my Lord Bacon, "maketh a full man ; confer- 
ence a ready man." Conversation is as essential to the 
highest culture as study or meditation. If there were 
fewer debating clubs and more conversational circles it 
might be better for the risin>>; iijeneration. Conversation 



CONVERSATION. 15 9 

dispels prejudice and makes us not only better ac<iuainted 
with ourselves, but with others also. 

It is true that there must be high culture before there 
can be really good conversation — that brilliancy in con- 
versation is not to be acquired by deliberately setting 
about the work of saying good things. But then there is 
an advantage in acquiring the power of saying well what 
we have to communicate. It is not so much that people 
have nothing to say as that they do not know how to utter 
themselves with effect. Full men are often the most silent. 
It is desirable to cultivate the power of expressing our- 
selves clearly, grammatically, and to the point. There is 
much force in well-chosen words, even when they carry no 
great weight of thought. The lack of conversational power, 
of practiced speech, makes men backward in the expres- 
sion of their opinions, and puts them at a disadvantage in 
defending their own views. This is seen in rehgious con- 
ferences and social assemblies, — wherever men and women 
come together. They are afraid to speak lest they should 
not express themselves so grammatically or fluently as they 
would wish to do. 

Hence, though it might be folly to set to work with the 
idea of becoming brilliant conversers, it is wise to cultivate 
the power of expression. And this may be best done in 
the home circle — parents starting topics in discussing which 
the children may join, relating the best thing heard during 
the day, or any event of interest that may have transpired. 
The conversational powers of the young may thus be culti- 



160 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

vated, while a more intimate knowledge is gained of their 
ideas and pursuits, and a closer bond of union established 
between parents and children. It is the experience of 
physicians that the inanity of home life, the dull round of 
domesticity, is the source of much of the unhappiness, and 
even of some of the diseases, of women — all of which 
might be avoided by the brightening of the home circle 
with refined and intelligent conversation on the living top- 
ics of the day. "Tell me some new thing," is the con- 
stant, though it may be unexpressed, wish of the Avife, as 
the husband returns at night from contact with the outer 
world, of which she sees so little. Yet how often he says 
nothing, but sits down to his newspaper, which she has no 
time to read, and neglects to communicate to her any por- 
tion of its contents. 

Of course it is well to read, and to meditate on what we 
read, but both processes lose half their value without con- 
versation. A man does not fully possess his own ideas 
until he has communicated them to others. The inane 
character of much of the literature of the day, need not be 
dwelt upon. Novels which do not inform, but merely afford 
a passing excitement, constitute the greater part of popu 
lar reading. I am informed by the librarian of one of our 
public libraries, that seven-tenths of all the books taken 
out are novels, the greater part of them not of the best 
class. This is a dissipation which cannot in many instances 
fail to be injurious in its effects upon character. It is not 
such a great benefit to provide free libraries, as we are apt 



CONVERSATION. 161 

to think it, if we do not first educate the people to read 
that which is best, and to avoid that which is evil. 

It maj be thought that I have placed too high a value 
on conversation as a social and educating force, but there 
is good authority for the high position I have given it. 
What sajs Montaigne, the brightest and most companion- 
able of all the master minds of the sixteenth century ? 
This founder of modern popular philosophy, says — "The 
most fruitful and natural exercise of the mind, in my opin- 
ion, is conversation. I find the use of it more sw^eet than 
of any other action of life ; and for that reason it is, that 
if I were now compelled to choose I would sooner consent 
to lose my sight than my hearing and speech. The study 
of books is a feeble and languishing motion, that heats not, 
whereas conversation teaches and exercises at once. If I 
converse with a man of mind, and no flincher, who presses 
hard upon, and digs at me right and left, his imagination 
raises up mine." 

It is this stimulating effect, of which Montaigne speaks, 
that makes conversation the highest form of mental exer- 
cise. A gentleman who is himself a powerful converser, 
as well as able writer and speaker, has said that public 
speaking is the lowest form of mental effort. It is a cheap 
accomplishment easily acquired in our academies, debating 
societies, town-meetings and popular assemblies. Next 
comes the faculty of committing our thoughts to paper, of 
composition, or the power of writing those graceful and 
pleasing domestic tales, in which, as a result of their higher 



162 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

education of late years, so many women now excel. Lastly, 
comes conversation — the highest of all, because more se- 
verely taxing all the mental powers. This is not in accord- 
ance with popular ideas on this subject, but let us see if it 
is not strictly true. 

The public speaker, as well as the writer, has the field 
wholly to himself. He fears no contradiction, and has but 
to utter that which has already been elaborated in his mind. 
The converser, on the contrary, must measure his strength 
with others, must be able to command, on the instant, all 
his resources, be ready to fence, and on the alert to catch 
his opponent tripping. He is in the position of a wrestler, 
straining all his powers in close contact with his interlo- 
cutor, while the public speaker is but performing a feat 
of strength, or sleight of hand trick, long practiced and 
unopposed. 

Let me conclude with one more saying of Sydney Smith. 
Writing to Miss Harcourt in his old age, he says : ''The 
summer and the country, dear Georgiana, have no charms 
for me. I look forward anxiously to the return of bad 
weather, coal fires, and good society, in a crowded city. I 
have no relish for the country ; it is a kind of healthy 
grave. I am afraid you are not exempt from the delusions 
of flowers, green turf, and birds ; they all afford slight 
gratification, but are not worth an hour of rational conver- 
sation : and rational conversation, in sufficient quantities, 
is only to be had from the congregation of a million of peo- 
ple in one spot. God bless you I" 



DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 



The Mississippi has a history of which little is known. 
Unnumbered ages have rolled into the past since a mighty 
people dwelt upon its banks, and floated upon its waters. 
Doubtless their annals were marked by great events ; they 
had their heroes and their sages ; their poets and their 
priests, whose renown rang through the primeval forests, 
and whose deeds they fondly thought should claim the ad- 
miration of all succeeding generations. But, alas ! of all 
their greatness they have left us but a grave ; of all their 
mighty deeds history can tell us nothing, and tradition is 
as voiceless as themselves. How they lived, and how they 
died ; how they fought and how they trafficked ; what arts 
they knew, what rites they practiced ; whence they came 
and why they passed away, we shall probably never know. 
We only know that they lived and labored, and that dying 
they left their grave-mounds as silent monuments to tell of 
their mysterious existence. Remorseless time has inter- 
posed its impenetrable veil, and hidden their history from 
the world ; all conquering Nature has triumphed over their 
mightiest works, rearing its giant forests over the ruins of 
great cities, and the summits of lofty mounds. Penetrat- 



164 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

ing these, the antiquary of to-day gathers fragments of 
their pottery, their tools, and their weapons, and declares 
them to be the work of a people who had made no slight 
.advance in the arts ; — drawing their bones from the rest 
of ages, the craniologist declares them to belong to an- 
other and a higher race than the Indians who came after 
them. 

Of these latter, as they existed at the time of the earli- 
est explorations of the Mississippi, it will not be out of place 
here to say a passing word. They were in many respects 
an interesting people ; indeed, this wonderful valley seems 
always to have been inhabited by remarkable races. The 
earliest accounts of the Mississippi tribes are derived from 
the narrative of De Soto's hapless expedition. He found 
them living in large and populous towns, well defended by 
walls and towers, pierced with regular loop-holes and sur- 
rounded by well-made ditches. They had cultivated fields, 
and some knowledge of the arts. Their chiefs were men 
of great dignity, and were treated with the utmost respect. 
The historian of De Soto's expedition, describing the reti- 
nue of a chief, says, "The chief came with two hundred 
canoes full of Indians with their bows and arrows, painted, 
with shields in their hands, wherewith they defended the 
rowers on both sides, and the men of war stood from the 
head to the stern, with their bows and arrows in their 
hands. The canoe wherein the King sat had a canopy 
over the stern, and he sat beneath it. And from under 
the canopy where the chief man sat, he commanded and 



DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 165 

governed the others." Such a people were not unworthy 
of the great river on whose banks thej dwelt. 

It is somewhat remarkable that so large a river, oftering 
so important a means of entering the heart of the conti- 
nent, should have so long remained unknown to Europeans, 
after other and less important streams had been explored. 
Columbus himself entered the Gulf of Mexico, but its 
southern shore only was visited bj him. Who first discov- 
ered the mouth of the great river is now unknown, but the 
delta of a river corresponding to the Mississippi, is found 
on the maps of as early a period as 1513. In 1518 a map 
was drawn up by the arbitrator appointed to decide between 
the claims of rival discoverers, and on it we find the Mis- 
sissippi again traced under the name of the River of the 
Holy Ghost, which was the earliest name by which it was 
known to Europeans. And yet we hear of no expedition 
sent out for its exploration. Other objects than, geographi- 
cal discoveries occupied the thoughts of the leading men 
of the time. It was the age of romantic adventure in pur- 
suit of sordid aims. It was marked by a new race of 
crusaders, whose zeal was inflamed by visions of rich coun- 
tries awaiting the spoiler, and whose God was Mammon. 
In men's imaginations splendid cities were built up, ght- 
tering with gold and precious stones, and surrounded by 
an earthly paradise, where perpetual verdure crowned the 
earth, and youth-giving fountains showered their sparkling 
waters in the genial sunshine. Gold ! gold in unlimited 
abundance, in mountain piles, drew them on, as in the 



166 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

Eastern tale the fatal mountain attracted the hapless mar- 
iners, and doomed them to as certain a destruction. In 
pursuit of these visions they committed enormous crimes ; 
they suffered unheard of hardships ; they wandered, har- 
assed and bewildered, in strange lands, and sick with dis- 
appointment, weary of battling the wily savage, they died 
— and left their bones to whiten the soil they had so often 
reddened with human blood. Strange dispensation ! It 
was left to us, three centuries later, to find in the valleys 
of California, the long-sought, eagerly-wished-for Dorado 
of Leon and De Soto. 

In these expeditions, Leon, Cordova, and Ayllon succes- 
sively found death on the shores of Florida ; but the spirit 
of the age was not dampened ; in 1528 Pamphilus de Nar- 
veaz attempted to conquer and colonize the whole northern 
coast of the Gulf. He failed, and but few members of the 
expedition ever returned. One man, Cabeza de Vaca was 
taken prisoner by the Indians, and after four years of sla- 
very, escaped and struck inland with four companions. 
Taken for supernatural beings by the interior tribes, who 
had never before seen a white man, they became their med- 
icine men and with lives thus guarded by superstition they 
rambled across the continent to the Gulf of California, 
traversing the bison plains and the adobe towns of the half 
civilized natives of New Mexico, perched on their rocky 
heights. De Vaca was therefore the first European to cross 
our continent from sea to sea ; in his long wanderings he 
must have reached and crossed the Mississippi, but in his 



DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 167 

narrative it is distinguished from no other large river that 
he met. He stands, however, in a distant twilight as the 
hrst European known to have stood on the banks of the 
Mississippi, and to have launched his boat upon its waters. 

But if DeVaca brought no account of the Great River, 
he did return with glowing descriptions of what seemed to 
him of far greater importance. He told, with an air of 
mysterious secrecy, of great cities, situated in a country 
"the richest in the world." Men listened with eager ears, 
and their inflamed imaginations gave a new impulse to the 
adventurous spirit of the age. Burning with a desire of 
conquering for Christ the many tribes within. Father Mark, 
a Franciscan Friar, in 1539 set out from the Pacific coast, 
with a negro companion of DeVaca's, to visit the strange 
lands explored by him. He crossed the desert wastes and 
reached the Colorado ; "but after gazing from a command- 
ing height on the embattled towers of Cibola, with its 
houses rising story above story, and its gateways glittering 
so that they seemed masses of turquoise, returned with 
baffled hopes, for the natives had refused him entrance, 
and actually cut off his negro guide, and a large party of 
friendly Indians." 

But the good Friar was not disheartened. His account 
so inflamed the imaginations of the Spaniards that an ideal 
kingdom rose into existence, and a new expedition was 
projected. This second expedition reached and took the 
wondrous city of Cibola, which instead of rewarding their 
toils by heaps of treasure, only served to show that 



168 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

'"Tis distance lends encliantrnent to the view," 

far on a near approach its turquois walls resolved them- 
selves into sun-burnt bricks, and its glittering towers be- 
came masses of well glazed mud. 

We come now to the great expedition of Ferdinand De 
Soto, which set out from Cuba in 1539. Its object was 
the discovery of the rich gold lands supposed to exist in 
the interior of the continent. Under the name of the 
River of the Holy Ghost the Mississippi was not unknown 
to De Soto, who believed it to be the key of the golden land 
he sought. How he wandered for three years through the 
region which now forms the States of Florida, South Caro- 
lina, Georgia and Alabama ; how he carried after stubborn 
fight, many gallant towns, some fired, like Moscow by their 
gallant inhabitants ; how he was led hither and thither by 
enticing stories of a people whose heroes wore helmets of 
burnished gold ; how he marched and fought^ fought and 
marched, always eagerly pursuing the faintest indication 
of the Golden Land, and always disappointed, although 
unconsciously he often trod upon golden sands — it is not 
necessary here to tell. The sad romantic tale is famed in 
verse and story. It is enough to say that in the spring of 
1542 he at last reached the banks of the great River, not 
there to find the rich treasure which he fondly hoped was 
to reward his toil, but to die upon its banks and lay his 
bones beneath its waters. 

His successor, Muscoso, after wandering some months in 
the region west of the Mississippi, returned io its banks, 



DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPT. 169 

built seven brigantines in which to escape from the fatal 
land, and on the 2d of July, 1543, sailed down the river, 
harassed by the natives, to the Gulf of Mexico, and coast- 
ing along the shore, reached Tampico, "Whereat the Vice- 
roy and all the inhabitants greatly wondered," says the 
chronicle. But although Muscosco was the first who 
"sailed down the great river to the opening sea," he did 
little towards its exploration, or making known its great 
features. Still we recognize in the description of the un- 
known Portuguese who chronicled the doings of the expe- 
dition, a true picture of the river as it exists to-day. 
"The river," he says, "was almost half a league broad ; if 
a man stood still on the other side it could not be dis- 
cerned whether he was a man or no. The river was of 
great depth, and of a strong current ; the water was always 
muddy ; there came down the river continually many trees 
and timber, which the force of the water and stream 
brought down." Added to this we have the description 
given to Father Mark by a Florida Indian ; "This river in 
his country," he said, "was two leagues wide, and that 
they found fish in it as large as horses, and that they had 
on it canoes which could hold twenty rowers on each side ; 
and that the lords sat at the stern under a canopy." 

So much the Spaniards knew of the Mississippi river in 
the middle of the sixteenth century ; they had explored its 
shores for at least a thousand miles ; they knew it to have 
at least two branches equal in size to the finest rivers of 
Spain, and to be nearly a league wide and perfectly navi- 



170 FRATEBNITY PAPERS. 

gable, and jet they abandoned it and its magnificent val- 
ley, because they failed to find there the gold which had 
lured them on. 

True, in 1557, fourteen years after the disastrous retreat 
of the remnant of De Soto's forces, an expedition was sent 
by the King of Spain, under Don Tristun de Luna, with 
the object of, reducing the whole of Florida to Spanish rule. 
But its fate was like that of those which preceded it ; De 
Luna reached the Mississippi, after much hard fighting — 
and there revolts arose in his camp — vessels soon came to 
bear the survivors back to Mexico, and none now looked 
in hope to a quarter which had proved fatal to so many 
brave men. 

The Mississippi was now forgotten. For more than a cen- 
tury its waters rolled on to the sea, unvexed by the keel 
of the white man ; and the inhabitants of its valley pur- 
sued their semi-savage way of life — their wars and their 
hunts, their dances and their harvest feasts — undisturbed 
by the strange invaders who had once so ruthlessly laid 
waste their fields and destroyed their towns. 

When we next hear of the Mississippi it is from quite 
another quarter, and from men of far different motives. 
The Spaniards explored the river near its mouth ; the 
French from its northern sources ; the first approached it 
as adventurers, seeking their own aggrandisement ; the 
latter as missionaries, seeking the glory of God in the con- 
version of the heathen. The former, failing to realize their 
golden visions, left it with disgust in the possession of its 



DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 17^ 

savage tribes, the latter explored its whole length and open- 
ed its rich vallej to the labors of the missionary and the 
trader. 

In 1608 Quebec was founded by the French under Cham- 
plain. The place immediately became a starting point 
for numerous bands of Recollect Friars and Jesuit mis- 
sionaries, who, burning with zeal for the conversion of the 
heathen, intrepidly plunged into the wilderness, in pur- 
suit of its savage inhabitants. They ascended the Ottawa, 
explored the Saguenay, discovered lake St. John, and led 
the way overland from Quebec to Hudson's Bay. They 
were the first Europeans who formed a settlement on the 
coast of our own State, and among the first to reach it 
from the St. Lawrence. Thus while engaged in the noble 
work of enlightening barbarous nations, they were enabled 
to achieve geographical discoveries fraught with results of 
the highest importance to civilization. 

Men who pushed their explorations with such zeal could 
not be long in hearing of the Mississippi ; the Great Wa- 
ter that flowed to the sea. But the accounts of it which 
reached them through the Indians, though sufficient to 
arouse the liveliest curiosity, were vague and indistinct. 
To us, at this day, when steam has laid open the remotest 
recesses of the great lakes and rivers of the continent, 
and every child is familiar with their names and peculiari- 
ties, it seems scarcely credible that little more than two 
centuries ago such wild conceptions were formed and en- 
tertained concerning one of the most marked physical feat- 
ures of the continent. 



172 FBATERNITY PAPERS. 

The missionaries first heard of the Mississippi as a lake, 
a great sea ; and again the opinion was entertained that it 
was a great river, flowing across the continent, and emp- 
tying into the Gulf of California. On its waters they 
hoped to float to the Pacific, and thus reach China and 
circumnavigate the world. So firmly was this belief enter- 
tained that the French name of China — La Chine — was 
given to a locality near Montreal, from which the good 
fathers were to set out on their perilous voyage, and to 
this day the village and Rapids of La Chine commemorate 
the geographical blunder of the time. 

But as yet the river was only known to them through 
the reports of the Lidians. True, in 1689 the adventur- 
ous Nicolet, strikin*>; west of the Hurons, and rearchino; 
the last limit of the Algonquins, explored Green Bay, 
ascended the Fox River, and finally embarked on a stream 
flowing west, which, as he says, in three days more would 
have carried him to the sea, in other words to the Missis- 
sippi. But years passed on and the Mississippi was not 
yet reached. Many a good missionary, as he taught the 
savages in the wilderness, heard from them strange ac- 
counts of the Great Water ; it was, they said, "a great 
river, a beautiful river, large, broad and deep, which would 
bear comparison with the noble St. Lawrence, and on whose 
banks, in many tribes, dwelt the men of the sea." 

The Fathers heard and wondered, and in their hearts 
sprung up a fervid desire to reach the Great Water, and 
to carry the gospel to the tribes that dwelt along its shores. 



mSCOVEEY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 173 

Thia happiness was reserved for Father Marquette, one of 
the most zealous and amiable of their number, a truly 
Christian hero, who counted it great gloi'j to die in the 
service of his Master. Long a humble but zealous mis- 
sionary among the Hurons, he had looked forward to "the 
happy necessity of exposing his life for the salvation of the 
unknown tribes who dwelt beside the Great Water," with 
eager and enraptured anticipation. 

Great therefore was his joy, when in the year 1673, M. 
JoUyet arrived at his remote mission at Mackinaw, with 
the glad tidings that he had been appointed by Frontenac, 
the Governor at Quebec, to make the discovery of the 
Mississippi, and that Father Marquette was ordered to 
accompany him. The reasons which induced the Gov- 
ernor to send out M. JoUyet and Father Marquette upon 
this mission of discovery, are well worth stating for the 
illustration they afford of the wild dreams then indulged in 
concerning the unknown interior of the continent. In the 
words of an early chronicler they were "to seek a passage 
from Quebec t^ the China Sea, and to discover the two 
kingdoms of Theguaio and Quivira, which border on Can- 
ada, and where gold mines are, it is said, abundant." 

With such visions before him, it is not wonderful that 
the imagination of the good Father was inflamed. He 
was to discover a new path to the old world ; to explore 
imaginary kingdoms of the new, and above all, to carry 
the glad tidings of the gospel to their benighted inhabi- 
tants. Eagerly did he set about the work of preparation. 



174 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

Every Indian wanderer was questioned about his knowl- 
edge of the Great Water, and from the reports thus ob- 
tained the first rude map of the Mississippi was drawn up. 
At last, on the 17th of May, 1673, the little expedition 
set out on its important mission. The place of departure 
was Mackinaw, on the cold extremity of Lake Michigan, 
where Father Marquette had gathered the poor wrecks of 
Hurons. Indian corn and some dried meat were their 
whole stock of provisions, and with this, in two bark canoes, 
M. Jollyet, Father Marquette and five companions, set 
out, firmly resolved to do all and to suffer all for so glori- 
ous an enterprise. 

And now let us pause for a moment to contemplate the 
heroic position of these two men. At or near their point of 
departure they had already reached the limit of former 
discoveries. They were in the wilderness, far from their 
friends at Quebec, and a new world Avas before them — a 
world of Avhich the dangers were all untried, and which no 
white man had ever yet penetrated. Even the Indians 
about them had not ventured to explore thj^ unknown land, 
and only knew it as a region peopled by savages more bar- 
barous than themselves, and by monsters fearful to behold. 
When Father Marquette told the people of the Wild Oats 
that he was going to discover distant nations, they earnestly 
attempted to dissuade him from the project. He would 
meet Avith nations, they said, that never spared strangers, 
but tomahawked them without provocation ; the great river, 
too, was full of frightful monsters who swallowed up men 



DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 175 

and canoes together ; there was even a demon there who 
could • be heard from afar, who stopped the passage and 
efngulfed all who dared approach ; and lastly, the heat was 
so excessive in those countries that it would infallibly cause 
their death. 

■ But none of these things could dampen the ardor of the 
zealous missionary. He made light of their pretended 
demon, and declared that they could defend themselves 
well enough against the river-monsters. And so, with 
paddle in hand, he went cheerfully on his way. "Our 
joy," he says, "at being chosen for this expedition, aroused 
our courage, and sweetened the labor of rowing from morn- 
ing till night." Merrily their paddles played over a por- 
tion of Lakes Huron and Michigan ; they entered Green 
Bay, and ascending the Fox River to its' head, took leave, 
with new devotions, of the waters which flow to Quebec. 

A short portage brought them to the head waters of the 
Wisconsin, a tributary of the great river whose waters they 
so longed to see. Here everything was new, and wild and 
solitary. As they floated slowly down the broad Wiscon- 
sin, amid its vine-clad Isles and its countless sandbars, no 
sound broke the stillness, no human form appeared. Be- 
hold the missionary and the discoverer, in their frail canoes 
•in the midst of this solitude — a solitude made frightful by 
its utter absence of man. They are alone in the heart of 
this great continent, which lies clothed in all its wild and 
primitive luxuriance of vegetation, the haunt of the wild 
beast and the occasional hunting ground of the wandering 



176 FJRATEBNITY PAPERS. 

savage. Thej have come as the pioneers of future gene- 
rations; thej have come the first of a mighty tide of hu- 
man heings, who, with the coming jears will pour in living 
streams over this goodly land, and by the arts of civilized 
life and the holy influences of religion, will sweep from it 
all barbarism, and make it the home of a great and happy 
people. Little more than two centuries have rolled away, 
and yet, to-day, how great the contrast ! how wonderful 
the progress that has been made ! 

After sailing seven days down the Wisconsin, at last ou 
the 17th of June, lt)73, they floated mto the gentle cur- 
rent of the Mississippi, near where now stands the town of 
Port Hudson, in the State of Wisconsin. "Here we are," 
says Father Marquette, with a joy that he cannot express, 
"here we are on this renowned river," so eagerly sought, 
so happily found. Gladly did the adventurers commit 
themselves to its waters — waters which rolled on throuo-h 
new and strange countries to an unknown sea. Whether 
this great river, which the grateful Father called the River 
of the Conception, had its mouth in Virginia, or the Gulf 
of Mexico, or the Red Sea of California, was now to be 
determined, and its valley to be opened to the influences 
of commerce and religion. 

Soon all was new ; mountains and forests glided away, 
islands with groves of cotton wood became more frequent, 
moose and deer browsed on the plains ; a strange animal, 
Svith the head of a tiger and the snout of a wild-cat was 
seen traversing the river, and a monstrous fish, foretold by 



UTSCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 177 

the Indians, struck so violently at their canoe that they 
took it for a large tree about to knock it to pieces. This 
was probably the cat-fish, which grows enormously large, 
and is found to this day in the waters of the Mississippi. 

As they coasted along they came to the monsters of 
which the Indians warned them — strange creatures painted 
upon rocks, frightful for their height, with horns on the 
head, a fearful look, red eyes, bearded like a tiger, with a 
face like man's, and a body covered with scales. The 
boldest Indians dared not gaze long upon them, and even 
the good Father was startled at first beholding them. 
These painted monsters, which still remain in a good de- 
gree of preservation, were so well done that Father Mar- 
quette could not believe them to be the work of the Indi- 
ans, and besides, they were painted on a perpendicular 
rock, apparently inaccessible to man. The demon of which 
they had been told was a point where the river was forced 
through a narrow, rocky channel, with a furious combat of 
the waters, and a great roaring, which struck terror into 
the Indians, "who," says Father Marquette, "fear every- 
thing." 

Descending still farther they came to the land of strange, 
wild jcattle, which we now call buffiiloes, and which, together 
with the turkey, appeared sole tenant of the wilderness. 
For, as yet, they had seen no trace of man in this fright- 
ful solitude. At last, after eight days' sail, they saw foot 
prints on the shore ; they followed them to the not far dis- 
tant village, where, standing a little way off, and not with- 



178 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

out some fear, they raised a cry which soon brought out 
from their cabins an eager and curious, but peaceful and 
friendly multitude. 

Then came the ceremonies of reception, the procession 
bearing pipes offered in solemn silence ; the old man stand- 
ing naked at the door of his cabin, crying, with his hands 
stretched towards the heavens, "How beautiful is the sun, 

Frenchmen, when thou comest to visit us! All our towns 
await thee, and thou shalt enter all our cabins in peace." 
Then the calumet was smoked, and the Sachem, addres- 
sing Father Marquette and M. Jollyet, exclaimed in the 
poetic style of the Indian speech — 

"I thank thee, Blackgown, and thee, Frenchmen, for tak- 
ing so much pains to come and visit us ; never has the 
earth been so beautiful, nor the sun so bright, as to-day ; 
never has our river been so calm, nor so free from rocks, 
which your canoes have removed as they passed ; never 
has our tobacco had so fine a flavor, nor our corn appeared 
so beautiful as we behold it to-day. Here is my son, that 

1 give thee, that thou mayest know my heart. I pray thee 
to take pity on me and all my nation. Thou knowest the 
Great Spirit Avho has made us all ; thou speakest to Him 
and hearest His words ; ask Him to give me life and health, 
and come and dwell with us, that we may know Him." 

In this welcoming speech, Longfellow, when he came to 
write Hiawatha, found his poetry made to his hand. He 
puts it into the mouth of Hiawatha, on the arrival of the 
Blackrobe chief: 



DISGOVEMT OF ^HE MISSISSIPPI. 179 

"Beautiful is the sun, O stranger, 
Wlien you come so far to see urf! 
All our town in peace awaits yoiT, 
All our doors stand open for you ; 
You shall enter all our wigwams, 
For the heart's right hand we give you. 
Kever bloomed the earth so gaily, 
Never shone the sun so brightly 
As to-day they shine aiul blossom. 
When you come so far to see us! 
Never was our lake so tranquil, 
Nor so free from rocks and sand-bars; 
For your birch canoe in passing 
Has removed both rock and sand-bar. 

"Never before had our tobacco 
Such a sweet and pleasant flavor, 
Never the broad leaves of the corn-tields 
Wei'e HO beautiful to walk oi», 
As they seem to us this morning, 
When you come so far to see us!" 

After feasting the adventurers, and begging them not 
to proceed, on account of the many dangers that lay before 
them, the Sachem, with six hundred followers, escorted 
them to their canoes, and took leave of them in the most 
friendly manner. "They are mild and tractable in their 
disposition," says Father Marquette, but he adds, "they 
have many wives, and that they may agree the better, often 
marry sisters, yet they are so extremely jealous that they 
cut off their wives' noses on the slightest suspicion. I saw 
several who bore the marks of their infidehty." 

Floating on, ever finding something new and strange 
along the banks of the river, the adventurers passed the 
mouth of the Missouri, a muddy monster rushing untamed 
into the calm and clear Mississippi ; passed also the beau- 



180 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

tifu! Ohio, whose pure waters shun the contact with Mis- 
souri's muddj stream, and soon came to the land of the 
cane and the country which the mosquitoes might call 
their own. Indian tribes were passed, some of whom as- 
sumed a hostile attitude, while others received them gladly. 
At last the J came to a tribe who dwelt in genial climes, 
who knew no snow, whose riches consisted of the hides of 
wild cattle, and who gave them watermelons to eat. These 
told them that the mouth of the river was but ten days' 
sail from their village, and that there were Europeans near 
there who traded with the Indians. The Mississippi, they 
now saw, emptied into the Gulf of Mexico, and fearing to 
fall into the hands of the Spaniards, who held Florida and 
Tampico, our voyagers resolved to return with the informa- 
tion already gathered. They had sailed for thirty days 
down the Mississippi, and returning by another route, up 
the Illinois, they reached the mission of St. Francis Xa- 
A^er just four months after their departure from it. 

Thus the triumph of the age was accomplished ; the 
heart of the continent was explored, and the way opened 
for that tide of civilization which has ever since flowed into 
it, and is now at work converting the wilderness into a fit- 
ting abode for enlightened man. But it was left for an- 
other adventurer to follow up the discoveries of the Jesuit 
Father, to pass from the upper waters of the Mississippi 
down to its mouth at the sea, and thus to open its whole 
length to commerce and navigation. 

Robert Cavalier de La Salle, an energetic Frenchman 



DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 181 

who had come over to Canada to push his fortunes, was at 
this time in command of Eort Frontenac,on Lake Ontario. 
Hearing of the results of Jollyet's voyage he conceived 
the plan of enriching himself by shipping cargoes of buf- 
falo skins and wool from the banks of the Mississippi direct 
to France by way of the Gulf of Mexico. It is curious to 
remark here that La Salle was the first to identify the 
river of Marquette and Jollyet with the great river of De 
Soto — so little was known of its character and course. 
Having obtained a patent from the French government, 
and persevered through numerous discouraging disasters 
that would have disheartened a less resolute man, La Salle 
at length set out, and in January, 1682, began his voyage 
down the Mississippi. His plan was to ascertain accurate- 
ly the position of its mouth, then return to France, and 
sail direct with a colony, intending to establish it at some 
convenient place upon the river. 

Previous to setting sail down the Mississippi, which La 
Salle and his companions called the river Colbert, he dis- 
patched Father Hennepin to explore the upper waters of 
the river. This good missionary was quite a different per- 
son from the meek and zealous Father Marquette. His 
amusing vanity and his propensity to marvelous stories, 
make his narrative less trustworthy than that of his pre- 
decessor. If we are to beheve him he had the remark- 
able power of being in two places at once, and he encount- 
ered on this voyage every species of hardship. Certain it 
is that he penetrated a region, the natives of which had 



182 FRATERNITY PAPERS. , 

never before seen, a white man. He was the first Euro- 
pean who reached the Falls of St. Anthony, and gave them 
the name they now bear in honor of St. Anthony of 
Padua. 

The natives, among whom he was for sometime a prison- 
er, were accustomed to worship the Falls as a spirit, and to 
make sacrifices to them that success might be given them 
in battle. They held the Frenchmen to be spirits because 
they had come so far with safety, and seeing Father Hen- 
nepin repeating his prayers from a book, they took it to be 
a spirit, and asked the missionary to cause the rain to 
cease falling by its power. The good Father had but little 
success in proselyting among this people. One soul, how- 
ever, he flattered himself was saved. An Indian child 
being sick, he baptized it, and having thus in his view, con- 
verted it to Christianity, he was anxious that it should have 
no opportunity, through recovery, of relapsing into heathen- 
ism. Great therefore was his consternation when the child 
appeared to be restored to health, smiling in. its mother's 
arms, who thought the baptism had proved its cure ; but, 
adds the good Father, with great unction, "she died soon 
after, to my great satisfaction." 

Returning to La Salle, we find that after twenty-seven 
days sail down the river, he reached the limit of Mar- 
quette's voyage.* Thence forward he was to be the first 
French explorer. After taking possession of the country, 
with great ceremony, he set out for the mouth of the river, 
and soon reached the populous town of the Taensas — a, 



DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 183 

half-civilized people, living in houses of clay and straw, 
with roofs of cane which formed a dome, adorned with 
paintings ; they had wooden beds and much other furniture, 
and even ornaments in their temples, where they interred 
their chiefs. They were attired in mantles woven of white, 
pliant bark, and their chief was attended by slaves, and 
treated with more than Eastern reverence. ''The minds 
of the people," says the chronicler, ''were docile and man- 
ageable, and even capable of reason. In a word we gen- 
erally found them to be men." It is much to be regretted 
that this great truth, that the Indians are men, has so often 
been lost sight of in our intercourse with them. 

At a point still farther down, war-cries and the beat- 
ing of drums were heard, and four Frenchmen, sent with 
offers of peace, were met with a shower of arrows. The dis- 
charge of a gun, however, greatly terrified the savages, 
who had never before seen fire-arms. They called the re- 
port thunder, not understanding how a wooden stick could 
vomit fire and kill people so far off without touching them. 

On the 6th of April they reached the Delta of the 
Mississippi, where it divided into three channels. La Salle 
and his two Lieutenants, each taking a separate channel, 
advanced full of hope ; the brackish water grew salter, 
the sea must be near at hand, and at last on the 9th of 
April, 1682, and sixty-two days after embarking upon the 
Mississippi, they looked upon the open sea. The cross was 
planted, the arms of France were raised, a volley of mus- 
ketry was fired, and a leaden plate inscribed with the arms 



184 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

of France, and the names of those who had just made the 
discovery was deposited in the earth. Thus had France, 
in the three expeditions of Jollyet, Hennepin and La Salle, 
explored and taken possession of the great river from the 
Falls of St. Anthony to the Sea. 

The adventurers were now out of provisions, and finding 
some dried meat at the mouth'of the River, they took it 
to appease their hunger, but soon perceiving it to be hu- 
man flesh, they left it to their Indian guides. "However," 
adds the chronicler, with a lingering relish, "it was very 
good and delicate." They were enabled however to satisfy 
their appetites with the less dainty fare of crocodile flesh 
and potatoes. 

Ascending the river, La Salle reached Illinois again, and 
the next year returned to France. He soon set out for 
the mouth of the Mississippi, but never again beheld it. 
He perished by the hand of one of his own companions, 
while seeking the mouth of the river along the shore of the 
Gulf. Marquette had already died peacefully in the wil- 
derness, at the early age of thirty eight years. 

Thus passed away those early explorers, before yet they 
had seen the fruits of their labors. These came after them. 
Henceforward all was progress along the line of the great 
river. In 1686, four years after the expedition of La Salle, 
the present town of Dubuque, in Iowa, was settled by the 
Canadian French for the purpose of trading with the In- 
dians. But the French were not destined to subdue the 
savage, and sweep away the forest; to people the great 



DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 185 

valley and build up States in the wilderness. Men of 
sterner mould were needed for this work ; and at last they 
came, a century later, when, in 1769, the soUtary Boone 
first scaled the mountain barrier and gazed with staring 
eyes upon "the dark and bloody ground." Then com- 
menced the sway of Anglo-Saxon energy which is des- 
tined in coming time to make the Mississippi valley an em- 
pire mightier than any of those olden ones whose story 
comes down to us through the ages. 



THE WHITE MOUNTAINS, 



To the early voyagers along this unknown shore the 
great white dome of Mount Washington must have been a 
welcome and attractive object. Weymouth, escaping from 
the shoals off Cape Cod, was glad when he might discern 
very high mountains a great way up into the main, and 
found safe anchorage under Monhegan, one of those high 
islands which have always made the coast of Maine so at- 
tractive. Levett, coming eighteen years later, in 1623, 
says, "This river, as I am told by the savages, cometh 
from a great mountain called the Crystal Hill, being as 
they say one hundred miles in the country, yet is it to be 
seen at the seaside, and there is no ship arrives in New 
England, either to the west so far as Cape Cod, or to the 
east so far as Monhiggen, but they see this mountain the 
first land, if the weather be clear." 

Yet though seen so oft, and so much an object of mys- 
tery and desire, it was not until nearly twenty years after 
this that a white man first climbed the white hills. The In- 
dians held them in great awe, and never dared to ascend the 
highest peaks, which in their imaginations were peopled with 
beings of a superior rank, who were invisible to the human 



THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 187 

eje, but sometimes indicated their presence by tempests, 
which they were believed to control with absolute author- 
ity. They deemed the ascent not only perilous, but im- 
possible. Those dwelling near them gave them the name 
of Agiocochock. Those tribes to the eastward, viewing 
them at a distance, called them Waumbekketmethna, sig- 
nifying white mountains. The early settlers called them 
the Crystal Hills, referring doubtless to the white appear- 
ances of the mountains, their tops being covered with snow 
from the last of October to the end of May. 

The adventurous white man who first pushed lip the 
Saco valley and ascended the White Hills was one Darby 
Field, a name that deserves to be remembered as that of 
the first White Mountain tourist. The Indians endeavored 
to dissuade him from the perilous attempt, but in the year 
1642 he made the ascent of Mount Washino;ton and in- 
duced two Indians to accompany him. Returning with 
glowing accounts of the riches he had discovered, Thomas 
■Gorges, a relative of Sir Ferdinando, the proprietor of 
Maine, with some friends, was induced to make the journey 
in August of the same year, 1642. They were fifteen 
days in making the trip up the Saco and back, which we 
can now accomplish in a few hours. They discovered that 
this plateau included the sources of the Connecticut, the 
Saco, the Androscoggin and the Kennebec rivers. 

The first published narrative of a visit to the mountains 
was that of John Josselyn, given in his "New England Rar- 
ities Discovered," published in 1672. Josselyn was visit- 



138 F^^ TEENITY PA PERS. 

ing his brother Henry, who dwelt on the point now known as 
Front's Neck, in Scarborough. John was a naturahst, a 
curious, inquisitive man, who was the first to discover that 
a wasp's nest was not, as he had thought it, some strange, 
new fruit, Hke a pine-apple, plated with scales ; and it is of 
this adventure of his that Longfellow sings : 

"I feel like Master Josselyn when lie found 
The hornet's nest, and thought it some strange fruit, 
Until the seeds came out, and then he dropped it." 

Josselyn himself says, "by the time I was come into the 
house, they hardly knew me but by my garments." This 
grim practical joke of the wasps long supplied food for 
bucolic mirth among the woodsmen of New England. 

The White Mountains, as seen from Front's Neck, loom 
up grandly on clear days. Josselyn must often have ob- 
served them, and longed for a closer acquaintance. He 
made the visit to them somewhere between 1663 and 1671, 
and seems to have had some intercourse with the Indians 
in the vicinity, as he gives their traditions in regard to their 
origin, as well as a very vivid and interesting description 
of the mountains themselves. 

"Four score miles (upon a direct line)," he says, "to 
the northwest of Scarboro', a ridge of mountains runs 
northwest and northeast, an hundred leagues, known by 
the name of the White Mountains, upon which lieth snow 
all the year, and is a landmark twenty miles off at sea. 
It is a rising ground from the seashore to these hills ; and 
they are inaccessible, but by the gullies which the dissolved 



THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 189 

snow hath made. In these gullies grow savin bushes, which, 
being taken hold of, are a good help to the climbing dis- 
coverer. Upon the top of the highest of these mountains, 
is a large level, or plain, of a day's journey over, whereon 
nothing grows but moss. At the further end of this plain 
is another hill, called the Sugar Loaf— to outward appear- 
ance a rude heap of mossie stones, piled one upon another 
— and you may, as you ascend, step from one stone to 
another, as if you were going up a pair of stairs, but wind- 
ing still about the hill, till you come to the top, which will 
require half a day's time ; and yet it is not above a mile, 
where there is also a level of about an acre of ground, with 
a pond of clear water in the midst of it, which you may 
hear run down ; but how it ascends is a mystery. From 
this rocky hill you may see the whole country round about. 
It is far above the lower clouds ; and from hence we be- 
hold a vapor (like a great pillar,) drawn up by the sun- 
beams out of a great lake, or pond, into the air, where it 
was formed into a cloud. The country beyond these hills, 
northward, is daunting terrible ; being full of rocky hills, 
as thick as mole-hills in a meadow, and clothed with infinite, 
thick woods." 

Any one who has ever ascended Mt. Washington on foot, 
will recognize the truthfulness of this description. The 
resemblance of its peak to a sugar-loaf, is apparent at a 
glance. The mystery of the water has been a mystery to 
many, but it is now known that under the pile of rocks 
which composes the summit, is a huge mass of ice, which, 



190 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

partially dissolving under the heat of summer, supplies the 
springs which furnish water to the Summit House. "Daunt- 
ing terrible," indeed, must have been the unknown coun- 
try northward, with its multitude of hills, clothed with 
almost impenetrable woods. 

Though the White Mountains were thus visited by white 
men as early as 1642, no settlements were made in the 
region until 1771, more than a century later. The Indian 
wars prevented an earlier advance of the white man. The 
Indians inhabiting this region were the Sokokies, or Pe- 
quawkets, and the Anasagunticooks, tribes of the Abena- 
kis, the first inhabiting the Saco valley, the latter that of 
the Androscoggin. The Pequawkets were a terror to the 
white man until their overthrow by Lovewell in the famous 
fight at Saco pond. They had many famous chiefs — the 
dignified Squando, who was made the enemy of the whites 
by the outrage which caused the death of his child ; the 
cruel and revengeful Assacumbeit, who boasted that with 
his own hand he had killed one hundred and forty English- 
men, and was knighted therefor by Louis XIY. of France ; 
the friendly Chocorua, driven to his death for the price of 
his scalp, by savage white men, and leaving his curse be- 
hind, flung down from the sterile mountain which now bears 
his name ; and Polan, the inveterate enemy of the set- 
tlers, shrewd, subtle, and brave, who was killed in a skir- 
mish at Windham, on Sebago Lake, in the year 175(3, and 
buried under the roots of a beech tree, as Whittier sin^fs. 

These tribes, seeing it was impossible for them to resist 



THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 191 

the encroachments of the white man, retired early to the 
St. Francis, in Canada, whence in 1781, six Indians made 
a raid upon Bethel, killed three men, and carried as many 
more into a captivity which lasted sixteen months. This 
ended the bloody Indian history of the region, being the 
last of the Ions: series of attacks which had commenced 
with King Philip's war, more than a century before. A 
few still lingered on their old hunting grounds. Old Na- 
tullock built his hut on the shores of Lake Umbagog, where 
he lived with his daughter, the last of his race. The 
Indians have passed away, leaving behind them only the 
names they gave to hill and stream, and the traces of their 
encampments found here and there on the banks of the 
Saco. 

As the Indians withdrew the whites advanced under 
the shadow of Waumbekketmethna. What could have in- 
duced the early settlers to make their homes in this rug- 
ged region of sterile hills and savage beasts, seems at first 
a wonder. But they were drawn hither by the glowing 
accounts which hunters gave of the "rich meadows" of the 
Saco. Darby Field, the first explorer, told of "thousands 
of acres of rich meadow to Pegwagget, an Indian town" 
— the present Conway. We may to-day see these broad 
and beautiful intervales of Conway, and higher up in the 
mountain pass we may look down upon the emerald meadow 
where Abel Crawford made his home and where he labored 
so long. It was the fertihty of these meadows which 
attracted the adventurers of a century ago, as the beauty, 



192 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

which their labors have added to them, have in our day 
drawn hither the crowd of artists and lovers of nature. 

But it required strength and courage to enter this wil- 
derness, reduce the forests, encounter its savage beasts, 
overcome the awesomeness of its towering peaks, and 
endure the severities of its climate. Only picked men 
came. They were a race of giants who made easy the 
paths which we now tread. Capt. Rosebrook, who built 
his house near the Giant's Grave, where now stands the 
Fabyan House, was large of stature and very strong. He 
once travelled eighty miles through the pathless wilderness 
bearing a bushel of salt on his shoulders. Major Whit- 
combe travelled fifty miles through the woods with a bushel 
of potatoes on his back, from which he raised one hundred 
bushels of good potatoes. Benjamin Copp, the first set- 
tler of Jackson, coming in 1778, with his family, resisted 
alone the terrors of the wilderness quite twelve years 
before any other settler moved into it. He could start off 
to mill, ten miles through the woods, with a bushel of corn 
on his shoulders, and never take it off from the time he 
started from his door until he put it down at the mill. 
The Pinkhams who have given their name to one of the 
wildest passes of the mountains, came in on snow-shoes in 
1790, when the snow was five feet deep on a level, all their 
worldly goods drawn by their single domestic animal, a hog 
harnessed to a hand-sled. The log hut to which they made 
their pathless way, and which was to be their home, was 
buried in the snow. It had no chimney, no stove, no floor, 



THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 193 

and no windows, except the open door, or the smoke-hole 
in the roof. EHjah Dinsmore and wife travelled eighty 
miles, in the dead of winter, on snow-shoes, he bearing all 
their furniture in a huge pack on his back, and both sleep- 
ing in the open air, on the ^'cold, cold snow." The Craw- 
fords were a race of giants. Abel, the father, at seventy- 
five, rode the first horse onto the top of Mt. Washington. 
Of the eight sons not one was less than six feet tall. Eras- 
tus, the eldest was six feet and six inches in height, strong, 
and compactly made. Ethan Allen was near seven feet, 
and made nothing of engaging in a hand to hand tussel 
with a bear. It was he who, when a party with whom he 
had just returned from the ascent of Mount Washington, 
found they had accidently left a bottle of spirits on the 
summit, disappeared for awhile, and then re-appearing with 
the bottle, said he thought he would "step up and fetch 
it." And it was he who used to bring ladies down from 
the mountains on his shoulders. 

These adventurous men and women needed all the cour- 
age and strength they possessed, for the hardships they en- 
dured were many and severe. Ethan Allen Crawford said 
that until he was nearly thirteen years old he never had a 
hat, a mitten, or a pair of shoes of his own, and after chop- 
ping wood barehanded all day his hands would swell and 
pain him so that his mother would have to poultice them 
before he could sleep. 

Labor was severe and food was scanty. Often they were 
on the verge of starvation. When food failed they buck- 



194 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

led a wide strap of some skin around them to sustain them, 
and drew it the straighter as thej grew more emaciated 
and thin. Once when a starving man had buckled into the 
last hole and was hardly able to stand, a neighbor as badly 
off as himself, crept to his door, and told him that a moose 
was not far from his cabin. The starving man made a des- 
perate effort, cut a new hole in his strap, buckled it tighter, 
tottered out and shot the moose. 

Wild animals were numerous and troublesome. Bears 
ravaged their fields, wolves preyed upon their pigs, and 
the eagles that built their nests on the cliffs of the moun- 
tains pounced down upon their fowl. Even the moose were 
savage when provoked and one of them once kept a poor 
hunter shivering all night in the top of a tree. But game 
was plentiful and eked out their scanty supplies of food. 
They trapped and they fished, and what they did not con- 
sume to day they salted down for winter's use. The win-^ 
ters were long and terribly severe, and to their rigors were 
added the perils of spring freshets. Most of the early set- 
tlers built their cabins on the intervales, along the banks of 
the Saco, until taught their folly by the great freshet of 
1800, which swept away houses, barns and crops and drove 
them back upon the high land. 

In addition to these hardships the early settlers around 
these mountains were isolated and cut off from each other 
by the huge mountain barrier between them. Those dwel- 
ling on the west of the mountains had no communication 
with the seaboard, and lacking a market their lands were 



THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 195 

comparatively valueless. A wide circuit must be made 
either to the right or the left before they could get to the 
lower settlements. Only the most adventurous hunters 
dared cross the huge barriers on foot, and they did it with 
much peril. 

One day a hunter named Nash, cUmbinga tree on Cher- 
ry mountain in search of a moose, saw what appeared to 
be a pass through the mountains. Steering for the open- 
ing he discovered the Notch, and struck the head waters of 
the Saco. The pass was then blocked with huge masses of 
rock, but making his way through he proceeded to Ports- 
mouth and informed Governor Wentworth of his important 
discovery. 

Said the wary Governor, "Bring me a horse down 
through this pass, and VAX give you a township of land." 
This was a difficult operation, but with the aid of a brother 
hunter, named Sawyer, letting the horse down by means 
of ropes over the projecting cliffs, the task was accom- 
plished. As they lowered the horse from the last projec- 
tion upon the southern bank, Sawyer drank the last drop 
of rum from his junk bottle, and breaking it upon the rock, 
called it Sawyer's Rock, which name it bears to this day. 
It lies by the side of the carriage road in view of the car 
windows, in the town of Bartlett. The Governor was 
true to his word, and the present Crawford House stands 
in Nash and Sawyer's location. 

But it was many years before a carriage road was cut 
through the gorge. Still the inhabitants profited much by 



196 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

the discovery. It gave the dwellers on the opposite sides 
of the mountains access to each other. A horse, with much 
labor, pulling him up and steadying him with ropes, could 
be (got over the obstructing rocks. Two long poles, fas- 
tened together by two bars in the center, without wheels, 
the smaller ends serving as thills in which to harness the 
horse, and the larger ends resting on the ground, were the 
only carriage. 

Trade began to flow through this new pass. The first 
articles carried through show the connecting bonds between 
distant regions in those days. One Titus Brown carried 
down to Portsmouth a barrel of tobacco which he had 
raised in Lancaster, and the enterprising merchants of 
Portland gave a barrel of rum to any one who would get 
it up through the Notch. This Oapt. Rosebrook succeeded 
in doing, with some zealous assistance, though the barrel, 
when he got it home, was nearly empty, "through the 
politeness of those who helped to manage the affair," said 
Mr. Crawford. Rum and tobacco have always been a 
strong team, which no mountain barrier could long separate. 
It is to this early period that belongs the pathetic legend 
of Nancy. She was a servant-girl in the family of Col. 
Whipple, the great man of the town of Jefferson. She 
was engaged to be married to a man also in the employ of 
the Colonel, to whom she had entrusted her earnings. She 
expected, with him, to accompany Col. Whipple on his 
annual fall visit to Portsmouth, there to be married. Re- 
turning one day from Lancaster, whither she had been on 



THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 197 

foot, a distance of nine miles, to make some necessary pur- 
chases, she found that her faithless lover had set off with 
the Colonel without her, and taking her money with him. 
In spite of the remonstrances of the family, she set off at 
night-fall, through deep snow, with no path but the spotted 
trees, and a storm coming on, in pursuit of him. She 
hoped to overtake him at a camp Col. Whipple had built 
in the Notch, a distance of thirty miles away. Through 
storm and darkness she wandered on all night, and arrived 
at the camp not long after the Colonel and his man had 
left, the fire they had kindled not having yet gone out. 
But the exhausted girl could not rest here. She pushed 
on determined to overtake them if possible. A little below 
the Notch she waded a small stream, since called Nancy's 
brook, now crossed by the track of the Portland & Ogdens- 
burg Railroad, and utterly exhausted, sat down on the 
opposite bank at the foot of an aged tree ; and here the 
men who followed her from Col. Whipple's, found her, 
with her head resting upon her staff, frozen to death. It 
satisfies the sense of poetic justice to learn that the treach- 
erous lover did not long survive her, but died in a few 
years, a raving maniac, in a mad-house. 

It was not until 1803 that a turnpike was constructed 
through the Notch. It extended from the west line of 
Bartlett through the Notch, a distance of twenty miles, 
and affording, as it did, an outlet through the mountains 
to the pent-up population beyond, soon became a great 
highway of travel. Gates were set up and tolls estab- 



198 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

lished, and, as it paid well, the road was kept in much bet- 
ter condition than it now is, since it has become a State 
road. 

Coos County was then beginning to be settled, and the 
Notch afforded the only outlet for its products. ' Then com- 
menced the trade with the population North of the moun 
tains which contributed so much to the commercial pros- 
perity of Portland. From Coos, from Vermont, away to 
the Derby line, came down in winter long strings of red 
pungs, drawn by two horses, with a board projecting behind, 
on which stood the driver, clad in a long blue frock. In 
the pung were his round hogs, cheese, butter and lard, 
together with a round red box in which was stored his own 
provender for the journey, in the shape of huge chunks of 
cheese and big doughnuts. A lady, who as a little girl 
often peeped into these boxes, and was offered a taste of 
their contents when she brought the tea which their owners 
ordered at the tavern, says the doughnuts were raised, and 
had no sweetening save a slight admixture of molasses. 
The Hon. Frederic G. Messer, of Portland, tells me that 
he has driven one of these pungs down through the Notch, 
in the night, in the midst of a driving snow-storm, when 
there were seventy-five of them in a string. The drivers 
were hardy, resolute men, who made this wild pass resound 
with their shouts and merry banter. For a return load 
they took up flour, salt-fish, rum and molasses, and thus 
trade flourished, flowing through this narrow gorge, once 
known only to the Indians, as they stole away to Canada 
with their captives. 



THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. I99 

To accommodate the increasing travel one Henry Hill 
built -a small house in the Notch, at the foot of one of its 
mountain walls. He and others occupied it as a public 
house for several years, and then abandoned it. In the 
fall of 1825, Samuel Willey, Jr., moved into this deserted 
and solitary mountain inn. There was no house nearer 
than the elder Crawford's on the one hand, and the old 
Rosebrook place, where the Fabyan House now stands, on 
the other. 

The winter passed without anything unusual occurring ; 
but one day in the following June the family was startled 
by seeing huge masses of earth slide down from the moun- 
tain behind them, and rush with accumulating speed into 
the valley below. Under the first panic caused by this 
alarming event, Mr. Willey got out his carriage, and was 
about taking his family away, but on second thought de- 
termined to remain. Two months later, on Monday, Au- 
gust 28th, 1826, a storm of unprecedented violence burst 
upon this whole mountain region. It was several days in 
gathering, and at last, amid reverberating thunder and 
vivid sheets of lightning, discharged a tremendous burden 
of rain, which, gathering in resistless torrents on the moun- 
tain sides, swept away rocks and earth, and spread wide 
inundation over all the intervales. The Saco, swollen by 
the wild mountain torrents, rushed through its bed with the 
rapidity of a gale of wind, the great boulders beneath its 
surface breaking it into billows like those of the ocean. 
It covered fields with sand and drift-wood, it swept away 



200 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

bridges and fences, it made the roads impassable with piles 
of bruised and peeled forest trees, and spreading wide over 
the meadows called upon the settlers to save their cattle 
and horses. 

At Abel Crawford's the river came down at a fearful 
rate, bearing along on its current sheep and cattle, haj 
and grain. Before Mrs. Crawford could get her children 
to the upper storj, the water was twenty-two inches deep 
on the lower floor, putting out her fire and washing the 
ashes about the room. Seeing that the house was in dan- 
ger from the immense mass of stuff brought down against 
it, she took her clothes pole and during the continuance of 
that violent tempest stood and pushed away the logs and 
timber as they came rushing down against the dwelling. 

In Conway the river rose twenty -four feet in seven hours. 
In many places the roads were overflowed to the depth of 
ten feet. The brother of Mr. Willey, the Rev. Benj. 
Willey, to whose work on the White Mountains I am in- 
debted for these and many other facts, was living at Con- 
way. His father, Mr. Samuel Willey, lived two miles 
above him near the Bartlett line. Busied with the scene 
of devastation around them, they thought nothing of what 
might have happened farther up among the mountains, 
until, on the Wednesday succeeding the storm of Monday, 
indistinct but startling rumors came that the family of Sam- 
uel Willey, Jr., were not to be found in their dwelling at 
the Notch. On the day succeeding the storm a man nam- 
ed Barker coming down from the North through the Notch, 



THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 901 

arrived at the Willey House about sunset, and found it va- 
cant amid a scene of terrible devastation. The mountain 
side had fallen, covered the intervale, choked up the river, 
and buried every thing save the desolate house from which 
the terrified family had fled. This had been saved by a 
projecting rock behind it, causing the avalanche to divide 
a^nd sweep around it. 

Intending to pass the night here, Mr. Barker entered 
the house and retired to rest. What may have been his 
thoughts amid this awful solitude we can only conjecture. 
Certainly he could not rest, for in the deep darkness of 
the night he heard a low moaning as from some living crea- 
ture. Perhaps it was the half-suppressed wail of one of 
the lost family imprisoned in the debris of the mountain. 
But in the deep darkness, without the means of striking a 
light, he could not give relief — he could only lie terror- 
stricken and sleepless until the dawn of day. With the 
first ray of light he arose and found the moans had pro- 
ceeded from one of Mr. Willey 's oxen, crushed beneath 
the timbers of the fallen stable. He released the animal, 
and proceeding on his solitary and toilsome way towards 
Bartlett and Conway, spread the first tidings of the great 
disaster. They reached the ears of Mr. W^illey's father 
through a trumpet blast, in the dead of night, from the 
opposite side of the Saco, rousing him to action. 

The news spread, and the people everywhere started for 
the Notch, on foot, crossing the swollen river in boats and 
on the trunks of fallen trees. What a scene of devasta- 



202 FRATERNITY PAPEES. 

tion met their eyes as they came in sight of the vacant 
house ! The mountain side, once covered with a wood of 
pleasant greenness, was now lacerated and torn. The valley 
was covered with one continuous bed of sand and rocks, 
with here and there the branches of buried trees thrusting 
through it. The meadows were lost beneath the debris, 
which had buried the long grass and the alders that grew 
upon them. Everything save the solemn house was a heap 
of ruins. 

But where was the missing family? The agonizing ques- 
tion was answered by the accidental moving of a twig, dis- 
closing some flies which usually prey upon infected animal 
matter. Search was made and the body of Mrs. Willey 
was recovered, dreadfully mangled. The search went on, 
bringing to light the bodies of Mr. Willey, his daughters, 
Eliza Ann, aged thirteen, and Sally aged five years, and 
of the two hired men, David Nickerson and David Allen, 
aged respectively twenty-one and thirty-seven years. The 
bodies of the other three children, Jeremiah L., aged 
eleven, Martha G., aged nine, and Elbridge G., aged seven, 
were never found. They lie buried beneath the over- 
whelming mass of the avalanche. 

We can only conjecture the events of that terrible night. 
Eleeing from the house so tremendously threatened, so 
wonderfully spared, the terrified family rushed out into 
the darkness and wild roar of the night. Ah, if they had 
rather borne those ills they had, than fled to others they 
knew not of! Leaving their safe refuge, they rushed into 



THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 203 

the arms of the avalanche, which amid the alternatino" 

o 

glare of the lightning and the pitchj darkness of the night, 
the crashing peals of thunder, and the concussions of rocks 
on the mountain side, the shrieks of the maddened winds 
and the hoarse roar of the deafening torrents, the very 
earth trembling beneath them, the mountains toppling over 
upon them — bore them resistlesslj on, struggling amid 
mingled earth and stones and broken trees, until at last 
the heavy earthen waves rolled over them and gave them 
death and sepulture. 

The awe-stricken people gathered the recovered bodies 
together, and making rude coffins of the materials at hand, 
placed them in one common, wide grave, to remain until 
they could be removed to the family burying ground. 
Over this common grave a prayer was said by Elder Sam- 
uel Heseltine, of Bartlett, who standing in the presence of 
those awe-inspiring mountains, referred to the magnificence 
of the Deity as described by the prophet Isaiah, saying, 
"who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, 
and meted out the heavens with a span, and comprehended 
the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the moun- 
tains in scales, and the hills in a balance" — and the moun- 
tain echoes gave back every word of this sublime descrip- 
tion, in a tone equally clear and solemn, as if adding their 
voices in testimony to the power of the Creator. We can- 
not wonder that the Rev. Mr. Willey says the effect of all 
this was soul-stirring beyond description. 

The six recovered bodies now lie buried in the burying- 



204 F^^ TEENITY PAPERS. 

place of the family, near the home of the elder Willey, on 
the boundary between Conway and Bartlett, where the 
high bank overlooks the intervale and the Saco. The spot 
■where they were first laid in the Notch is marked by a rude 
heap of stones which should give place to a commemora- 
tive monument, raised by the offerings of the visitors to 
these sublime scenes. 

Following the passage of trade came the first stragglers 
of the great army of summer visitors. The mountains 
themselves began to attract attention. Once objects of 
awe and dread, they now excited wonder and admiration. 
The first visitors set out as men who go upon a far journey, 
on horse-back or in private carriages, and entered upon 
these remote and sublime scenes with an adventurous spirit 
similar to that which actuates those who now go in search 
of the North Pole. The want of public houses on the 
road through the mountains began to be sorely felt. For 
years the Crawfords w^ere the only ones to entertain trav- 
ellers. The elder Crawford entertained all who came at 
what is now called the old Crawford House, still standing, 
below the Notch, and he and his son Ethan built another 
just within the gateway of the Notch, near the Elephant's 
Head, which was kept for many years by Thomas J. Craw- 
ford. 

Old Crawford's was the first house opened for the enter- 
tainment of tourists in the mountains. Sometime near the 
close of the last century Abel Crawford removed from 
Guildhall, Vt., and settled on this wild spot then rarely 



THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 205 

visited. Here he raised a family of eight sons. These 
men seemed born to battle with the mountains and the wild 
animals that roamed over them. Thej were the first 
guides, cut the first bridle-paths, and for years were the 
only ones to entertain travellers. Abel Crawford, the 
patriarch of the mountains, was a genial, good humored 
man, possessing a fund of anecdotes with which he never 
failed to entertain his guests. He was the very prince of 
mountain landlords, and people journeyed to the Notch, 
almost as much to see him, as to view the sublime scenery 
which surrounded his secluded hostelry. 

The welcome he gave them, the dainty fare set before 
them, the stories he told them, his wonderful activity in 
guiding them over the mountains, were the universal theme 
of praise and admiration among all early visitors at the 
mountains. The old house now standing deserted and deso- 
late, has entertained thousands, and been the scene of such 
good cheer and hearty hospitality as is rarely found in the 
fashionable hotels that have supplanted it. 

A record of those early days has happily been preserved 
in the Register kept at Old Crawford's. This book in many 
respects a rare literary curiosity, was at one time in the 
possession of Frank George, Esq., of Upper Bartlett, and 
I once spent a rainy day in looking over its entertaining 
pages. All travellers in those days seemed to think it nec- 
essary to give expression to the emotions awakened by the 
wild scenes through which they had passed, and especially 
to write in praise of Old Crawford and the entertainment 



206 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

he gave them. The trout and the fresh berries are ever 
the theme of praise. It was no slight undertaking then to 
reach the Notch. The lumbering stages carried the trav- 
eller, with wearisome joltings, no farther than Fryeburg or 
Conway, whence the journey must be finished on horse- 
back. At a later day many drove up in private carriages, 
and stages ran through. Arriving on foot, or horseback, 
after a weary journey through this wild mountain pass, it 
was a surprise and a delight to come upon a comfortable 
home, offering good cheer and hearty hospitality. 

All these emotions of wonder, surprise and admiration, 
with many amusing comments, find expression in the Reg- 
ister. It bears the autographs of many men now well- 
known to fame, among which we may mention those of 
James T. Fields, E. P. Whipple, Gov. Emory Washburn 
of Massachusetts, and Prof. Edward Hitchcock. A few 
extracts from these entries may amuse the reader : 

Prof. Hitchcock makes an entry, and, curiously enough, 
seems to think it necessary to make a comparison between 
the hills of Massachusetts and the White Mountains. 

''Aug. 6^1842. — Edward Hitchcock and lady, Amherst 
College, Mass., State Geologist. Just finished his explo- 
ration of Mass., and thought he would visit the White Hills. 
We have some fine mountains in Massachusetts, but none 
equal to these, which here rise around us as if they formed 
the battlements of Heaven. To-night a fine belt of the 
^aurora borealis,' or rather australis, spanned across from 
east to west, passing through the south magnetic pole, and 



THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 207 

forming a beautiful arch from one mountain to the other. 
^0 Lord, how manifold are thy works ! In wisdom hast 
thou made them all !' " 

Another visitor bears a well-known name : 

"JwZy 27, 1842. We arrived at the elder Crawford's 
this morning early, and were agreeably surprised to find 
that a good-natured old man who picked us up three miles 
back was our landlord, the far famed 'elder Crawford.' 
He seems to deal out all necessary information, and even 
answers a good many unnecessary questions as willingly as 
if every passer-by for the last thirty years had not accosted 
him with the same. Our breakfast was incomparable, and 
the price so small that we were ashamed to give so little 
for the treat. When I forget the flavor of those trout may 
my angling hand forget its cunning. 

Edward S. Hoar, of Harvard University ^ 

One more extract will show the free and easy style of 
some of these entries. A party of jolly customers drive 
up in a storm and thus express themselves : 
"WHOH ! 

"Here will we stop, nor longer fly before the wrath of 
stormy Boreas. Hardly can our faithful steeds convey us 
from his swift pursuit while he rolls together huge clouds, 
and hurls them, charged with thunder-bolts, at our heads. 
Saco comes leaping and jumping down his rough valley, 
covered with foam, and the forest resounds with his hoarse 
and angry roar. Here will we face the raging elements. 
This is our fortress. Ancient host, come hither I" 



208 FEATEBNITT PAPERS. 

"What do ye want?" 

^'Venerable patriarch, father of all the Crawfords, let 
the generous steeds be detached from the vehicles." 

"Wall, I guess you'll have to say that agin. I don't 
understand my own tongue none too well, and I am a little- 
deaf." 

"In your own language, then, 'Put up them air bosses.* 
And gentle hostess, we will dine at two, with your leave." 

"Jest as ye like, any time is agreeable to me." 

"And hast thou trout?" 

"No, we hain't. The river is ris, and so rily the boya 
can't catch none." 

"It matters not. We are not epicureans. We relish the 
simple fare of the peasant. The best you have shall con- 
tent us. And for dessert give us of those ruby berries 
that abound in these wilds." 

'*We hain't got nothing but rawsberries and huckleber- 
ries." 

"Good, let us have berries, both rasp and huckle." 

"Curious stranger ! The persecuted travellers who have 
taken refuge in this castle, this 10th day of August, 1842, 
at 10 o'clock ante-meridian, record their names thus : 



X X X X g ) 

X X X X X s > 

3 Cxxxxxxk) 



M X X X X g 

Dxxxxxs \ Anglers. 

Mc 



Now sleep we till dinner time." 

The early ascents of Mount Washington before paths 
were cut, were made with great difficulty, the climbers 



THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 209 

being compelled to force their way through the thick 
growth, to stoop under the scraggy tops of rough, stiff 
hemlocks and spruces, and at last to force their way up 
through the matted tops of the stunted trees, and walk upon 
them as upon moss. 

The first bridle-path was cut in 1821, by Ethan Allen 
Crawford. This was known afterwards as the Fabyan 
path. Paths were also cut by the Crawfords from the old 
Crawford House, and from the Notch House, kept by T. J. 
Crawford in the gateway of the Notch. On the opening 
of the Atlantic k St. Lawrence Railroad, in 1851, a bri- 
dle-path was cut from the Glen directly up the side of Mt. 
Washington. The ascent of these paths on foot or on 
horse-back, going as they did up hill and down again, in- 
volved much fatigue, but they had an air of adventure 
which modern methods lack. 

Arrived at the summit of Mt. Washington, tourists usu- 
ally ate their luncheon under the shelter of a rock, and 
often would remain but a short time. It was not until 
1852 that the bold thought occurred to Mr. Joseph S. 
Hall to build a house on the summit in which visitors might 
remain over night. This project was carried out with the 
aid of Mr. Rosebrook, a brother farmer of Jefferson, ground 
being broken on the first day of June, 1852, and on the 
25th of July they sat down to dinner in the first summit- 
house, with the outside completed. 

This enterprise led to the opening of an easier way of 
ascent. Mr. Hall felt the diflSculty of transporting his 



210 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

supplies up the winding bridle-path. One day riding down 
the Glen, on a buckboard, with Abner Lowell, Esq., of 
Portland, he said he could build a carriage road up Mt. 
Washington for $10,000. Mr. Lowell was impressed with 
the idea, and communicated it to D. 0. Macomber, who 
proposed the formation of a company and the procuring of 
a charter. Work was begun in 1853, but when the road 
was completed nearly to the halfway house, means failed 
and operations were suspended. 

The directors then made an arrangement with Mr. Dar 
vid Pingree, of Salem, Mass., who owned the summit of 
Mt. Washington, and most of the adjacent territory, by 
which a new company was formed in 1859, with a capital 
stock of $63,000. The road was completed in 1861, and 
since then an average of probably not less than two thou- 
sand persons has passed over it yearly. The road is eight 
miles long, fifteen feet wide, with an average grade of one 
foot to eight and a half. It has made what was before a 
toilsome climb, an easy and exhilarating drive, and has 
made the ascent of this lofty peak possible to the aged and 
infirm, as well as the young and robust, who alone could 
encounter the perils and fatigues of the bridle-path. 

Nearly ten years lator, about 1870, 1 think, a still bolder 
project was carried into execution, and a railroad was run 
up into the clouds along the western slope of Mt. Wash- 
ington. The bridle-path went winding over hill and dale ; 
the carriage road sought easy grades, zig-zagging along 
the edge of precipices ; but steam scorns all expedients, 



THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 211 

and makes a short cut to the summit. Now the ascent is 
a matter of an hour's comfortable riding in a railroad-car. 
How great the change since the ascents of 1820, when the 
adventurous climbers came back with their clothes almost 
torn from their backs, and their bodies sorely lacerated by 
the perilous march through the dwarfish growth. 

Scarcely less surprising is the change made in modes of 
approaching the mountain region. The old stage coaches 
went lumbering on for many years, until in 1851 the At- 
lantic & St. Lawrence Railroad, pushed on by the bold 
enterprise of a Poor and a Preble, and the pluck of 
Portland people, opened a way to the very heart of the 
mountains, and brought the eastern side out from obscurity. 
The Boston, Concord & Montreal Railroad arrived at the 
Fabyan House, on the west, in 1874. A year later the 
Portland & Ogdensburg, with a grade of 116 feet to the 
mile, for a distance of nine miles, came panting up the 
Notch, climbing the slope of Mt. Willey, crossing the track 
of the avalanche, shooting through the gateway of the 
Notch, and rushing triumphantly on its way to the waters 
of the St. Lawrence and the great lakes of the West. 

More fortunate than the people of Italy and Switzer- 
land we have not to tunnel through our mountains to open 
new avenues of traffic. They stoop down to give* us pas- 
sage. On the one hand the Androscoggin valley takes the 
Grand Trunk in its lap, and bears it safely through ; on the 
other the wild pass of the Saco, down which Nash and Saw- 
yer laboriously lowered that historic nag, widens its walls 



212 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

to give passage to the long trains climbing up from the deep 
valley below. The White Hills once almost inaccessible, 
are now girdled about by iron roads and made accessible to 
all the world. 



THE ABORIGINES OF MAINE, 



It is exceedingly difficult for races in antagonism to form 
just conceptions of each other. The passions inflamed in 
the contest for supremacy blind each to the good qualities 
of the other, while they bring into undue prominence all 
evil traits. In the conflict between the white man and the 
aborigines for the possession of this continent, it was inev- 
itable that misunderstandings should ensue, that wrong im- 
pressions should be made, and, first impressions being al- 
ways the most lasting, it was also inevitable that those mis- 
conceptions should continue long after their causes had 
ceased to operate. 

The Spaniards have a proverb that the man who has 
injured you will never forgive you, and this is equally true 
of nations. The wrongs of Ireland have rendered it im- 
possible for the Englishman to understand the Irishman, 
and for the latter to see anything praiseworthy in the char- 
acter of the former. 

Thus misconceptions of each other early grew up between 
the white and the red races in this country. If, on the 
first appearance of the white men, the natives, in the inno- 



214 FBATERNITT PAPERS. 

cence of their hearts, mistook them for celestial visitants, 
it required but a few years of intercourse between the 
races to create the impression that they were of quite an 
other order of beings ; and it is altogether probable that 
the Indian to this day has never been able to see in the 
white man those noble qualities on the possession of which 
he plumes himself and justifies his usurpation of the soil. 

On the other hand the white man saw only the savage 
side of the Indian character. It was characteristic of the 
Puritans that they saw only one side of any question that 
nearly concerned them. The Indian was to them a mere 
savage whose chief occupation and pastime were killing, 
scalping, flaying and torturing his neighbors; a fierce, 
blood-thirsty, relentless monster, hopelessly degraded and 
incapable of improvement. It is only recently that we have 
come to see that this view is quite as far removed from the 
actual truth as that which has been a favorite with the nov- 
elists and poets. 

That eminent Puritan divine, the Rev. Cotton Mather, 
was quite sure that the Indians were children of the Devil. 
"We may guess" he says, that probably the Devil decoyed 
these miserable savages hither, in hopes that the gospel of 
the Lord Jesus Christ would never come here to destroy 
or disturb his absolute empire over them." 

William Hubbard who was one of the early graduates of 
Harvard College, in 1642, wrote a "Narrative of the Trou- 
bles with the Indians in New England, from the earliest 
white settlement to the year 1677." This work represents 



THE ABORIGINES. 215 

i^e immeasurable rage against the Indians that at that 
early day had taken possession of the inhabitants of New 
England. Its pages almost quiver with furj against the 
Indians, and are strewn with words that seem to weary the 
vocabulary of execration and contempt. The Indians are 
spoken of as "treacherous villains," "the dross of man- 
kind," "the dregs and lees of the earth," "faithless and 
ungrateful monsters," "children of the Devil, full of all 
subtlety and malice," and King Philip himself is "this 
treacherous and perfidious caitiff." Of the fate of certain 
Indians taken in battle, he has this quiet and classic de- 
scription : "The men were turned presently into Charon's 
ferry-boat, under the command of skipper Gallop, who 
despatched them a little without the harbor. 

But even in his pages we now and then come to a por- 
trait of an Indian who is neither brute nor caitiff, but for 
pride and fortitude towers into a hero. Such was that stal- 
wart Indian, of princely air, who when told that his sen- 
tence was to die, said "he liked it well ; that he should die 
before his heart was soft, or had spoken anything unworthy 
of himself." He was shot to death, and this pious chron- 
icler thus concludes the account : "This was the conclu- 
sion of a damned wretch, that had opened his mouth to 
blaspheme the name of the living God, and those that made 
profession thereof." 

It was a dangerous thing, in those days, to speak against 
the Lord's annointed. This work of Hubbard's was widely 
circulated, and during several generations had an absorb- 



216 FRATERNITY PAPEBS. 

ing fascination for its readers in New England. It con- 
tributed largely to create that impression of the Indian 
character which has continued to our day. 

Every English colony, sooner or later, entered on a war 
of extermination with the Indian tribes in its vicinity. In 
the ethics of the early settlers of Pennsylvania and Vir- 
ginia, it was "no more harm to kill an Indian than a buf- 
falo." In Maine more than one early settler devoted his 
life, in peace as in war, to the slaughter of the Indians, 
and like Charles Pine, of Scarborough, earned the title of 
*' Indian Killer." To this day public sentiment on the fron- 
tier does not consider killing an Indian, murder. 

How then can it be supposed that the white man has 
been in a condition to do justice to the character and at- 
tainments of the Indian ? The early adventurers in Maine 
saw in him only a savage whom it was possible to cheat and 
rob, but who obstructed their possession of the soil, and 
was therefore to be gotten rid of at any cost. He was 
driven from the land of his forefathers, and only a harmless 
remnant remains in the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy 
tribes. We may now safely seek to do him justice. Merely 
as a study in ethnology, a true estimate of the status of the 
Indian as a man, ought to have an interest for us, and when 
we consider the traces he has left behind him in the land 
which we now call our own, the names he has given to our 
rivers and mountains, the legends he has thrown about 
them, the familiar words he has added to our vocabulary, 
the relics of his occupation, in trail, and shell-heap, and 



THE ABORIGINES. 217 

rock-graven hieroglyphs, a sentiment of regard for those 
who have gone before us, and whose places we now occupy, 
ought to stir us to do justice to his memory. 

The aborigines of Maine belonged to the great family of 
the Algonquins, the most widely extended of the six chief 
divisions of the red Indians of North America. Speaking 
forty dialects, the Algonquins ranged from Labrador to the 
far South, from Newfoundland to the Rocky Mountains. 
They covered sixty degrees of longitude, and twenty de- 
grees of latitude, and numbered ninety thousand — more 
than one-third of the entire Indian population. The division 
of this great family inhabiting Maine w^as known as the Ab- 
enaki. It w^as subdivided into various tribes, of which the 
oldest, the Sokokis dwelt on the Saco river, the Anasagun- 
ticooks on the Androscoggin, the Caribas on the Kennebec, 
the Tarratines on the Penobscot, and the Openangoes on the 
waters emptying into Passamaquoddy Bay. Each valley 
had its tribe, which for the most part remained within its 
own territorial limits. They were not mere wandering tribes, 
for they lived in villages, each valley having its own head- 
quarters. Father Biard, who visited them in 1618, speaks 
of the people of the Kennebeo as a powerful nation living in 
settled villages. Father Vetromile finds evidence that the 
Abenakis were an original people in name, manners and lan- 
guage. Their very name bears testimony to this, the word 
Abenaki signifying "our fathers at the -sunrise," or "our 
ancestors of the East." It is to be observed that this was 
not the name by which they knew themselves. They called 



218 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

themselves 7nen, thus distinguishing themselves from the in- 
ferior tribes who were regarded but as a mixture of the hu- 
man and brutal kinds. They had risen to the conception of 
a pure manhood, which meant to be great as hunters or war- 
riors. The name Abenaki was given them by the west- 
ern tribes who claimed to be their descendants. The In- 
dians spoke of some tribes as our neighbors, or our uncles, 
but always of the men of Maine as our ancestors. Forty 
tribes called them "our grandfathers." The Abenakis 
themselves spoke of the Algonquins as our nephews or de- 
scendants. 

This conception of the Abenakis as an ancient people, 
showing a civilization w^hich must have been the effect of 
antiquity and of a past flourishing age, is confirmed by 
the recent researches of Mr. Leland into the mythology 
still existing among the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy 
tribes. He is convinced that the original stock of the Al- 
gonquin myths is not to be found in the far West, but 
among the tribes of Maine and the Micmacs of New Bruns- 
wick, that is, among the northeastern Algonquin Indians. 
These myths show an affinity with those of the Esquimaux, 
and w^ith those of the Norsemen, as set forth in the Eddas 
and Sagas of Scandinavia. When we consider that the 
Norsemen for centuries had colonies in Greenland, that the 
Micmacs have always had intercourse with the Esquimaux, 
and that in the descendinar deorrees of latitude it is diffi- 

o o 

cult to tell where the Esquimaux end and the Indians be- 
gin, it is easy to trace a line of descent to the Abenakis, 
and thence to the western tribes. 



THE ABORIGINES. 219 

What then was the status of this ancient and original 
people — the Abenakis of Maine ? How far had they ad- 
vanced in that line of improvement which we call civiliza- 
tion, and which distinguishes man from the brute ? Were 
they mere "worthless savages," "Canaanitish devils," ''wild 
and dangerous beasts," as they were branded by early 
writers, or were they simply men, not necessarily of an 
inferior race, but in a lower degree of civilization, posses- 
sing many of the qualities that go to make up a noble man- 
hood ? It has been justly remarked that such terms as 
iron age, bronze age, or stone age, mean only certain stages 
of civilization, and not merely chronological periods appli- 
cable to the whole of the world. The implements of the 
Indians were those of the stone age, but their civilization 
was not far behind that of the seventeenth century of 
Christendom. As men they would compare favorably with 
the lower classes of Europe at that period. 

Physically they were fair specimens of manhood. They 
were taller than the average of white men, and if no stronger 
were usually more agile. Their complexion a copper brown, 
their hair black, coarse, and long ; broad, beardless faces, 
retreating foreheads, prominent cheek bones, small, glis- 
tening, black eyes, and large, white teeth. If not the 
equal of the white man in bodily strength, the Indian was 
his superior in endurance and fleetness of foot. Some of 
their best runners could make seventy or eighty miles in a 
day through the unbroken wilderness. Many of the women 
were of comely face and figure, yet both women and men 
were often morose in countenance and manner. 



220 FBA TERNITT PAPERS. 

As regards intelligence they were by no means dull and 
stupid. They had a sense of humor, a quick wit, and great 
powers of observation. Christopher Levett, who visited our 
coast in 1623, and may be regarded as the first white man 
who built a house within the present limits of Portland, 
says of the Indians, "I find them generally to be marvel- 
lous quick of apprehension, and full of subtlety ;they will 
quickly find any man's disposition, and flatter and humor 
him strangely, if they hope to get anything of him ; and 
yet they will count him a fool if he do not show a dislike of 
it, and will say one to another that such a man is meche- 
come.''^ 

An anecdote told of Gov. Dudley, of Massachusetts, 
illustrates the Indian's native wit and shrewdness. Seeing 
a half-naked Indian, the Governor said, "Why don't you 
work and get some clothes?" "Why don't you work ?" 
retorted the son of the forest. "I work head-work'" said 
Dudley, pointing to his head. The Indian said he was 
willing to Avork, and the Governor gave him a job, but he 
played so many tricks that the Governor, convinced of his 
knavery, and wishing to punish him, offered him half a 
crown if he would deliver a letter for him. The letter was 
directed to the keeper of the prison, and ordered him to 
give the bearer a certain number of lashes. The Indian, 
suspecting all was not right, induced a servant of the Gov- 
ernor to take the letter to its address. The result was that 
the unfortunate servant received a severe whipping. The 
Governor, greatly chagrined at being a second time out- 



THE ABORIGINES, 221 

witted by the Indian, on meeting him again asked how he 
dared to cheat and deceive him so many times. "Head- 
work, Governor, head work," was the reply ; and nothing 
was left for the Governor but to freely forgive him. 

A close observer of natural phenomena, the Indian could 
travel for miles in the densest forest, in a straight line, and 
could note signs and sounds the white man could not per- 
ceive. His senses were trained to great acuteness, and 
were used with much skill and accuracy. He perceived 
many small things which the w^iite man overlooked. By 
observing the bending of the grass and bushes, by putting 
his ear close to the ground, by his powerful faculty of scent, 
he could discover the approach of enemies, their number 
and distance, tell whether they had passed through a cer- 
tain locality, what direction they had followed, and the 
place from which they came. 

The Indians studied the heavens, and could indicate with 
great precision the rising and setting of the sun, moon, and 
principal stars. They had a kind of sun-dial by observing 
their own shadow and that of the trees. They knew the 
constellations, and could point out Orion, Sirius, and sev- 
eral other stars of first magnitude. They knew the planet 
Venus, which they considered to be the morning star, but 
apparently did not identify it with the evening star. They 
divided time by the movements of the moon, rather than 
by the revolution of the earth around the sun. As a con- 
sequence, although they counted twelve months, or rather 
moons, in the year, they did not correspond to our months. 



222 FRATEBNITY PAPERS. 

They had an ingenious way of getting rid of the extra moon 
when there were thirteen in the year. They called it 
Ahonamwikizoos — "let this month go" — and they placed 
it between the moons of July and August, because in those 
months, the nights being very short, they could dispense 
with it easier than with other months havinsr lono-er nights. 
They had no idea of the division of time into weeks, nor 
of the division of the week into seven days. Their names 
for the months had a curious reference to the features of 
the seasons. Thus January was anciently called Mehwas- 
que, "The cold is great" — but after the white man burned 
their villages, especially that at Old Point, where Father 
Rasle was killed, and drove them out into the wilderness — 
they called January, Anglusamwesoit "it is hard to get a 
living." February was Taqiiash' nikizoos — "moon in which 
there is crust on the snow." March, Pnhodamwikizoos — 
"moon in which the hens lay," and so on. 

The Indians, though averse to continuous labor, had made 
a beginning in agriculture, and had acquired no inconsid- 
erable skill in the domestic arts. They cultivated maize — 
the Indian corn — pumpkins and beans. The white man 
learned from them the custom of manuring the land with 
fish. It was the good fortune of the Pilgrims in finding 
the Indians' store of corn, and in landing at a spot which 
had been already cleared for corn-fields, that saved them 
from starvation. The Indians had learned the secret of 
the maple, and manufactured maple syrup and sugar. Un- 
til the white man came and brought them iron kettles, their 



THE ABORIGINES. 223 

boiling was done chiefly in wooden troughs, by dropping in 
hot stones. The vessels in which they gathered the sap 
were of birch bark or pottery. 

Though they relied largely upon hunting, they gained 
much of their subsistence from the sea. They made thread, 
lines and nets, from the bark of trees," of strong grass, and 
of deer sinews. They built weirs of great stones and stakes 
in the ponds and rivers, in which the fish became entangled; 
but usually they caught them in nets, or with hooks, and 
speared them from their canoes by firelight. They were 
bold canoe-men. The name of one tribe, that of the Etech- 
emins, signified canoe-men, and was probably given them 
because they made such long voyages at sea. In their 
frail canoes they did not hesitate to attack the whale, and 
strand him on the shore. Singularly enough they did not 
know the cod, though it abounded in their waters. They 
were so adventurous, that the Micmacs passed the stormy 
Gulf of the St. Lawrence in their bark canoes to meet their 
enemies, the Esquimaux, in their caves and on their rocks 
in battle. They trafficked along the shore in their canoes, 
and made long voyages in them. 

Dr. N. T. True, writing of the relics of an Indian arrow 
and spear-head manufactory found on the banks of the 
Androscoggin, and struck with admiration at the skill dis- 
played by the natives in chipping off the jasper of which 
their arrow-heads were made, exclaims : "It is strange that 
we know so little of the handicrafts of our Indians as per- 
formed by them two hundred years ago." The reason 



224 FBATEBNITY PAPERS. 

that we know so little of the Indian industries is doubtless 
owing to the fact that the early settlers did not care to 
take note of them. They were not curious as to the In- 
dian civilization, deeming them to be merely savages to be 
exterminated, as the herds of buftalo on our western plains 
have disappeared before the slaughtering pursuit of the 
savage white man. 

The Indian had learned many useful arts. He knew the 
arts of making the bow with the string of sinew, and the 
arrow-head both of flint and bone. It is remarkable with 
how much skill he chipped off the material so as to make 
an arrow-head. The flakes were large and thin, such as 
no living mineralogist could make with the best of steel 
implements. The work was not done with a sudden per- 
cussion from stone or iron, but the expert placed a piece 
of buckskin in his left hand, then placed within it a piece 
of rock, steadying it between two of his fingers, while he 
held in his right hand the prong of a deer's horn having a 
blunted point. With this he pressed off the flakes from 
the edge of the rock until he had completed the arrow- 
head. The Indias practiced the arts of making vessels 
of pottery ; of curing and tanning skins ; of making moc- 
casins, snow-shoes, and wearing apparel, together with vari- 
ous implements and utensils of stone, wood and bone ; of 
rope-making from fibres of bark ; of finger-weaving, with 
warp and woof, the same materials into sashes, burden- 
straps, and other useful fabrics ; of weaving rush mats ; of 
making pipes of clay or stone, often artistically carved ;. 



THE ABOBIGINES. 225 

of basket-making with osier cane and splints, some of which 
baskets would hold water ; of canoe-making — the skin, 
birch-bark, and that hollowed from the trunk of a tree ; 
of constructing timber-framed lodges and skin tents ; of 
shaping stone mauls, hammers, axes, and chisels ; of mak- 
ing spears, nets, and bone-hooks ; implements for athletic 
games ; musical instruments, such as the flute and the 
drum ; weapons and ornaments of shell, bone and stone. 

The white man has adopted, and now himself manufac- 
tures some of the most ingenious of the Indian's inventions 
— as the snow-shoe, the best device ever made for travel- 
ling on snow — with it the Indian could travel forty miles a 
day over the surface of the snow ; the moccasin, a better 
protection to the foot in winter travel than any boot or shoe 
of the white man ; the birch-bark canoe, still found to be 
the best craft for navigating our rapid-running streams ; 
and the method of dressing the skins of animals with the 
brains, making them soft and pliable. 

Lescarbot also informs us that the Armouchiquois, who 
lived within the present territory of Maine, practiced paint- 
ing and sculpture, and made images of beasts, birds, and 
men, on stone and wood, as handsomely as good workmen 
in France. In these handicrafts, as practiced by the In- 
dians, there are certainly evidences of a considerable ad- 
vance in civilization. 

The Indians had made some progress in the science of 
government. The Sachems were the head chiefs, the Sag- 
amores of inferior authority, and both were elective. Only 



226 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

merit could raise a man to honor. They had their assem- 
blies in which all important questions were discussed. They 
formed confederations, extending over a wide extent of ter- 
ritory. Men of position carried themselves w^ith dignity. 
Inferiors w^ere not allowed to be too familiar with their su- 
periors. Thus Levett says — "The Sagamores will scarcely 
speak to an ordinary man, but will point to their men, and 
say, 'sanops must speak to sanops, and Sagamores to Sag- 
amores.' " 

The Indians had not reached the conception of private 
ownership in land. They occupied it in common. This 
was the cause of many misunderstandings with the whites. 
When they granted a parcel of land they conceived that 
they were only giving the use of it for a time, or according 
an equal privilege with themselves, They expected it back 
again, and accused the white man of bad faith when he re- 
fused to return it. 

In their treatment of women the Indian observed some 
of the amenities of civilized life. The maiden must be 
won. There was courtship before marriage. Parents were 
consulted, and presents made to the father of the maiden. 
She must herself then be wooed with a present — a deer, a 
beautiful bird, furs or beads. Lest she should still be un- 
willing the lover must pay still other attentions. So in the 
shades of evening he took his station near her cabin, and 
did his best to charm her listening ear by his singing, or 
the rude music of his fife, or if he were not musical, he 
must please her at the merry-making of the young by 



THE ABORIGINES. 227 

his wit or feats of strength and agility. Above all he must 
be a good hunter, as a guarantee that he could provide for 
his family. When the maiden accepted him as her sanop 
— or husband — he made more presents ; and then the de- 
sired guests were invited to the wigwam of her parents. 
Then followed feasts and dances for two or three nights, 
when the bridegroom led home his bride, who thenceforth 
devoted herself to preparing his food, making his clothes 
and keeping his wigwam fire ahve. 

It is generally held that the wife was the slave of her 
husband, but this is not strictly true. The domestic labor 
and the cultivation of their scanty crops, fell to her share, 
but the husband was not so idle as he seemed. It was his 
business to provide for the family wants by fishing and 
hunting, in the intervals of which labors he might well rest 
in his wigwam. It is doubtful if the labors of the Indian 
women were any more onerous than those which fell to the 
lot of the wives and daughters of the early settlers. The 
Indian might beat his wife, but white men have been known 
to do that. He practiced polygamy, but it may be doubted 
if he indulged in a plurality of wives to the extent prac- 
ticed by some of our Mormon Elders. Indian women could 
inherit dignities and possessions, which could hardly be said 
of slaves. Portland's first settler, Christopher Levett, when 
he came here in 1623, found a woman reigning in Casco. 
She and her husband treated him with great hospitality 
and bade him welcome. When certain masters of vessels 
came to visit him, the Queen, says Levett,"asked me if those 



228 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

men were my friends. I told her they were ; then she drank 
to them, and told them the j were welcome to her country ; 
and so should all my friends be at any time ; she drank 
also to her husband, and bid him welcome to her country, 
too ; for you must understand that her father was the Sag- 
amore of this place, and left it to her at his death, having 
DO more children." Thus we find a generous and hospit- 
able Indian woman the first sovereign of our territory of 
whom we have any knowledge. 

The characteristic traits of the Indians are usually said 
to be those common to all barbarous races. They were am- 
bitious, vindictive, cruel, envious and suspicious, but also 
sagacious, warlike, courageous, and excessively cautious. 
Revengeful and treacherous, they preferred to slay an en- 
emy by a secret rather than open blow. On the other 
hand they were passionate lovers of liberty, braved famine, 
torture and even death in the pursuit of glory ; were 
strongly affectionate to their families ; hospitable to the 
extent of sharing their last morsel with a stranger, though 
famine stared them in the face ; faithful in friendship, and 
never forgot a kindness. Tiiey were grave, dignified, pa- 
tient, free from all effeminate vices, and possessed a forti- 
tude that enabled them to command their emotions under 
the most trying circumstances. 

These are the traits commonly ascribed to the Indians in 
general. But we are apt to forget that among the Indian 
tribes, as among civilized races, there were differences of 
temperament, of manners, and of moral and social traits. 



THE ABORIGINES. 229 

What was the status, in these respects, of our own native 
Indians, the Abenakis ? If we accept the testimony of one 
who dwelt among their descendants and studied their his- 
tory, we shall find reasons to modify our estimate of the 
Indian character. It is not easy to break through the 
crust of prejudice, hardened through centuries, and view the 
Indians in the under light which Father Yetromile throws 
upon the Abenakis. But who knew them better than he ? 
In his view the Abenakis had an amenity of manners, and 
a docility, which distinguished them by far from the other 
Algonquin tribes. Their morals were pure, and they had 
never been charged with any kind of cruelty, even in time 
of war. They were a noble people, kind and gentle. 
They were not cruel, like the Iroquois. They were not 
savage and uncultivated like many other tribes of the Al- 
gic family, but they were "grand, pure and refined, to scorn 
even the most civilized nations of both continents." 

This is not the blood-thirsty savage of our fathers, but 
the picture may be as near the truth as that which has 
come down to us through the pages of history. To the 
French, who accommodated their civilization to that of the 
Indians, while the English in their attempts at civilizing 
them put too high a strain upon them, the Abenakis were 
faithful allies. They were brothers, and the Indian would 
not raise his arm against his brother. To the French, 
therefore, the Indians appeared in a different light from 
that in which they were viewed by the English. To them, 
doubtless, they were a gentle, faithful, intelligent people. 



230 FBATERNITY PAPERS, 

The English saw the savage side of their character, and 
painted them black ; the French dwelt with them in amity 
and loved them as brothers. 

But whatever conflicting views Englishmen and French- 
men may have taken of the Indian character, some traits 
of the Abenakis are well established. 

They were hospitable, and at first unsuspicious. Every- 
where the white man was welcomed. It was a Maine Sag- 
amore who welcomed the Pilgrims at Plymouth. Christo- 
pher Levett testifies to the hearty hospitality with which 
he was received. ''I sent," says he, "for the Sagamores, 
who came, and after some compliments they told me I must 
be their cousin, and that Captain Gorges was so, (which 
you may imagine I was not a little proud of, to be adopted 
cousin to so many great kings at one instant, but did wil- 
lingly accept of it.)" The superiority of Indian hospital- 
ity to that of the white man was strongly stated by an In- 
dian chief, who said : "If a white man enters one of our 
cabins, we dry him if he is wet, we warm him if he is cold, 
and give him meat and drink that he may allay his thirst 
and hunger, and we spread soft furs for him to rest and 
sleep on. We demand nothing in return. But if I go 
into a white man's house, and ask for victuals and drink, 
they say, 'Where's your money?' and, if I have none, 
they say, 'Get out, you Indian dog.' " 

The Abenakis were naturally urbane. They came into 
the houses of friends or strangers without knocking, and 
sat down without salutation or ceremony, as if entitled to 
hospitality. 



THE ABORIGINES. 231 

Thej were grateful, and never forgot a favor done them. 
They were fond of society. They had games and sports 
in which all engaged. Foot-races, wrestling, quoits, ball 
playing, and a sort of draughts were frequent amusements ; 
and they were much addicted to gambling by every possi- 
ble means. 

As to the charge of treachery and bad faith, it is to be 
remembered that the English made crafty bargains for their 
lands, obtaining deeds for extensive tracts before the In- 
dians understood fully the effects of such writings. This 
deception bred suspicion, and suspicion led to misunder- 
standings. Says Governor Lincoln, ^'We have been fed 
to repletion with stories of Indian faithlessness, but where 
is the authentication of the profaning of a faith pledged by 
the wampum belt, in which excuse ought not to have fol- 
lowed accusation, and explanation satisfied inquiry ? As to 
faith, if the English faith was Eitglish, the Indian was not 
Punic." 

The Abenakis were affable and docile in their manners. 
The modesty and decency observed in their families were 
great. Sisters and brothers behaved toward each other 
with propriety and respect. The brother abstained from 
any improper act in the presence of the sister. The women, 
though treated hard, and like servants, were seldom known 
to be false to their husbands. Young people were chaste. 
The Indians' love of their offspring was strong. They 
mourned their dead sincerely, and preserved their remains 
with affectionate veneration. In* the treatment of female 



232 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

captives, though instances of great cruelty are known, they 
were, on the whole, more humane than the victorious sol- 
diers of civilized nations of that age. 

A people are to be largely judged by the characters of 
their great men, their heroes, leaders and honored repre- 
sentatives. Among the Sagamores of the Abenakis there 
were men of noble qualities. First among thesa stands 
Samoset, Sachem of Pemaquid, who when the Massachu- 
setts Indians kept aloof from the Pilgrims because of the 
kidnapping of natives by Hunt, stepped boldly forward 
and cried, "Welcome, Englishmen!" He knew of Hunt's 
treachery, yet he was always the friend of the white man. 
Levett, who met him two years after, in the waters of the 
Sheepscot, speaks of him as a chief Sagamore, "who hath 
been found very faithful to the English, and hath saved the 
lives of many of our nation ; some from killing, and others 
from starving." In 162^ we find him conveying to John 
Brown the title to the tract of land embraced in the town 
of Bristol, Me., the first land title, by deed acknowledged, 
ever given by the Indians to a white man. Samoset, as he 
appeared to the Pilgrims of Plymouth, is described as a 
man free in speech, tall and straight, "the haire of his 
head blacke, long behind, only short before, none on his 
face at all ; he was stark naked, [this on the 16th of 
March !] only a leather girdle about his waist, with a fringe 
about a span long ; he had a bow of two arrows, the one 
headed, the other unheaded." 

Passaconaway, a Sachem of the Pennacooks, was noted 



THE ABORIGINES. 233 

for his sagacity and cunning. When he became old he 
called his tribe to a great feast, and there made to them 
his farewell address. "Hearken," said he, "to the last words 
of your father and friend. The white men are the sons of 
the morning. The Great Spirit is their father. His sun 
shines bright above them. Never make war with them. 
Sure as you light the fires the breath of heaven will turn 
the flames upon you, and destroy you. Listen to my ad- 
vice. It is the last I shall be allowed to give you. Re- 
member it and live." 

These were words of wisdom. There is something pa- 
thetic, as well as a spirit of prophecy, in the petition of 
Rowles, Sagamore of the Piscataqua Indians. He lived 
in Berwick, on intimate terms with the settlers, and when 
he became old and could no more go out of his dwelling, 
he sent to the principal men of the town this petition : 

"Being loaded with years, I had expected a visit in my 
infirmities — especially from those who are now tenants on 
the land of my fathers. Though all these plantations are, 
of right, my children's, I am forced in this age of evils 
humbly to request a few hundred acres of land to be marked 
out for them, and recorded as a public act in the town books; 
so that when I am gone they may not be perishing beggars 
in the pleasant places of their birth. For I know a great 
war will shortly break out between the white men and In- 
dians over the whole country. At first the Indians will 
kill many and prevail ; but after three years they will be 
great sufferers, and finally be rooted out and utterly de- 
stroyed." 



234 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

Among other famous chiefs were the dignified Squando, 
who was made the enemy of the whites bj the outrage 
which caused the death of his child ; the cruel and revenge- 
ful Assacumbuit, who boasted that with his own hand he 
had killed one hundred and forty Englishmen, and who 
was knighted therefor by Louis XIV. of France, the friend- 
ly Chocorua, driven to his death for the price of his scalp 
by savage white men, and leaving his curse behind, flung 
down from the sterile mountain which now bears his name ; 
and Polan, the inveterate enemy of the settlers, shrewd, 
subtle and brave, who was killed in a skirmish at Wind- 
ham, on Sebago Lake, in the year 1756, and buried under 
the roots of a birch-tree. 

The Abenakis, though pagans, were not idolaters. They 
offered sacrifices to the sun, but only as representing an 
invisible Being, who gives light, life and support to the 
whole world. They believed in one Supreme Being, Cre- 
ator of all things, whom they called the Great Spirit, supe- 
rior to all spirits, both good and evil. They believed also 
in an evil spirit, to whom they also offered sacrifices, not 
as an object of worship, but only to appease him that he 
might not hurt them in their hunting and fishing excur- 
sions, or their battles. They had a confused idea of the 
creation of man^ and of the deluge, but they possessed a 
distinct conception of a future reward for the just, who 
were to dwell in a good land full of game and hunting and 
fishing grounds ; and in a future punishment for the wicked, 
■who were to be scalped, and otherwise tormented by the 
hands of their enemies. 



THE ABORIGINES. 235 

Levett says the savages had two gods ; one they called 
Squanto, to whom they ascribed all their good fortunes, 
and another they called Tanto, to whom they ascribed all 
their evil fortunes. The one they loved, the other they 
hated. When evil befell one they said Tanto is hoggry, 
that is angry. When any died, they said Tanto carried 
them to his wigwam, and they never saw them more. 
Squanto, they said, dwelt up on high, and Tanto far west, 
but they knew not where. No one had ever seen either 
of them, except their pawpaws, and they only in their 
dreams. These spirits, good and evil, sometimes became 
confused in one, and called by the name of the Great Spirit. 
Hockomock was a name used by some Indians, which the 
settlers took to signify the Devil. Wood tells of an Indian 
who had never seen a black man, that coming where was a 
negro, he was alarmed, supposing him to be Habomocko. 
But then, we may remember that when the negroes on the 
banks of the Niger first saw a white man in the person of 
Mr. Parks, they exclaimed, "The Lord preserve us from 
the Devil !" Had the Indians known at first sight, what 
afterwards befell them, they doubtless would have thought 
some such exclamation pertinent. 

The superstition of the Indians was extreme, but did not 
much exceed that of the age in which the white man dis- 
covered them. They believed in evil spirits, but so did 
the Puritans. One of these evil spirits, called Pamola, was 
supposed to dwell on the top of Mt. Katahdin, and nothing 
could induce an Indian to ascend that mountain. It is but 



286 FBA TEBNITY PAPERS. 

of late that they have dared to attempt the ascent. The 
same superstitious dread was attached to the White Moun- 
tains. The Indians held them in great awe and never 
dared to ascend the highest peaks, which in their imagina- 
tions were peopled with beings of a superior rank, who 
were invisible to the human eye, but sometimes indicated 
their presence by tempests, which they were believed to 
control with absolute authority. The Indians deemed the 
ascent not only perilous, but impossible, and endeavored to 
dissuade white men from making the attempt. This dread 
of the lofty mountain tops was but the natural awe with 
which their stern features impress all who behold them, and 
the spirits supposed to dwell upon them were the embodi- 
ment of nature in its severest moods. Even the white man 
was not insensible to its influence. John Josselyn, one of 
the first to ascend Mt. Washington, pronounced the view 
from the summit to be "daunting terrible." 

The Micmacs had their enchanters and jugglers who 
resorted to the thick woods to perform their enchantments. 
French writers quote eye-witnesses who testified to having 
seen the woods trembling under their feet, of having ob- 
served contortions and forms taken by the Indians not pos- 
sible to mere men ; of having heard voices not human, and 
many other wonderful things. Levett writes : "their paw- 
paws are their physicians and surgeons and, as I verily be- 
lieve, they are all witches, for they foretold of ill weather, 
and many strange things ; every Sagamore has one of them 
who belongs to his company, and they are altogether di- 



THE ABORIGINES. 237 

reeled by them. On a time I was at a Sagamore's house, 
and saw a martin's skin, and asked him if he would truck 
it [that is barter it] ; the Sagamore told me no ; the paw- 
paw used to lay that under his head when he dreamed, 
and if he wanted that, he could do nothing ; thus we may 
perceive how the Devil deludes those poor people, and keeps 
them in blindness." Thus also tue may perceive that the 
inteUigent white man of that day believed in witches and 
the personal influence of the Devil. It would be hard to 
say which was the more superstitious of the two, the Indian 
or the white man. 

The language and literature of a people afford a meas- 
ure of their advancement. Judged by these standards the 
Abenakis were far from being degraded savages. Their 
language was no mere jargon. Their dialects were con- 
stantly changing, for they had no written characters to 
preserve the form of the words, and thus tribes dwelling 
apart found it difficult to understand one another. But 
the Abenaki could not be considered a language in a 
state of infancy. It was not monosyllabic like primitive 
tongues, but composed of words formed by an agglutination 
of other words, or parts of them. Baron La Hontan says 
the Algonquin language — by which it is believed he meant 
the Abenaki — ^Svas a language very much esteemed among 
the savages, in the same manner as the Greek and Latin 
languages are esteemed in Europe." He adds, "it is the 
finest and most universal language on the continent." M. 
Manack, a French priest, once resident among the Mic- 



238 FBATERNITY PAPERS. 

macs, — a branch of the Abenakis — declares that if the 
beauties of their language were known in Europe, semina- 
ries would be erected to teach it. M. Duponceau exclaims : 
"Alas, if the beauties of the Lene-Lenape language were 
found in the ancient Coptic, or an ancient Babylonish dia- 
lect, how would the learned of Europe be at work to dis- 
play them in a variety of shapes, and raise a thousand 
fanciful theories on that foundation. What superior wis- 
dom, talents and knowledge would they not ascribe to na- 
tions, whose idioms were formed with so much skill and 
method." 

These expressions of admiration may be considered ex- 
travagant, but they at least testify to the superiority of the 
Abenaki as an aboriginal tongue. Gov. Enoch Lincoln, 
who made a study of it, says it was a language "probably 
essentially original, but at least of the synthetic cast, and 
that so extensively as not to require the borrowing of shreds 
of other tongues for mending its defects, but containing in 
itself the elements of new combinations, without the occasion 
for any furtive measures for increasing its stores." "It had 
an unbounded susceptibility of composition, which rendered 
it copious and expressive." The Indians rarely adopted 
words from the French or English, but gave names of their 
own to objects they had never seen. Thus they had their 
Indian names for elephant, lion, and a great diversity of 
objects, unknown to them, except through the medium of 
verbal or pictured representation. It is the advantage of 
a language thus susceptible of composition, that it exhibits 



THE ABORIGINES. 239 

complex ideas by the least possible machinery, or rather 
bj the shortest mode. In the Indian tongue entire Eng- 
lish sentences were represented by a single word. The 
terminative sis indicated the diminutive. Thus the Ken- 
nebecasis river in New Brunswick is the little Kenne- 
bec. We take the parts of speech, as the verb and the 
substantive, and producing only one at a time, make out at 
last a proposition. The Indian embodied all, and showed 
you the finished object at a glance. 

In confirmation of the opinions quoted in regard to the 
language of the Indians, I may add the testimony of the 
Rev. Father O'Brien, of Bangor, who has made a study of 
the Abenaki. He writes me thus : ''It is my opinion that 
the language of the Indian betrays no particular inferiority 
to Europeans so far as the equipment of speech can indi- 
cate the intellect. His language is far from being the rude 
and uninflexible instrument and vehicle of thought supposed 
"to be characteristic of savages. It is by no means so de- 
ficient of abstract expressions as it is described to be by 
our writers, such as Bancroft. On the contrary it is alto- 
gether a wonderful structure, abounding in fine distinctions 
of expressions, unknown to the most cultivated languages of 
Europe. It may be said truthfully that in this sense, 
namely, of his language as indicative of his range and flex- 
ibility of thought, the Indian has been entirely misrepre- 
;sented, particularly by writers in English upon his lan- 
guage. 

"I am not able to speak so confidently of the vocabulary, 



240 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

or words expressive of the moral sense, both because I have 
not given this part of the subject any special study, and 
because the words of this description have beyond doubt 
undergone a modification of meaning, under the teaching 
of missionaries and white colonists. My opinion is, how- 
ever, that the Indian, on this score, also compared well 
with any people before their enlightenment and civilization 
through Christianity. If anything he was more consistent 
with his maxims than the Europeans who came in contact 
with him, were with theirs." 

The Abenakis had no alphabet. Theirs was not a writ- 
ten language. But they had a kind of hieroglyphics, or 
rather pictures, with some conventional signs, to transmit 
an event, a battle, or the adventures of a hunting party. 
Father Vetromile says the Abenakis had a regular method 
of writing in the same manner as the Chinese, Japanese, 
and other Asiatic nations, although with different charac- 
ters. This kind of writing is yet used among the Micmacs. 
The French found the natives in Acadia writing on bark, 
trees, stones, and engraving signs with arrows, sharp stones, 
or other instruments. They were accustomed to send pieces 
of bark, marked with these signs, to other Indians, of other 
tribes, and to receive back answers written in the same 
manner, just as we do with letters and notes. Their chiefs 
used to send circulars, made in the same manner, to all 
their men in times of war, to ask their advice, and to give 
directions. Several Indians possessed in their Avigwams a 
kind of library composed of stones and pieces of bark, and 



THE ABORIGINES. 241 

the medicine men had large manuscripts of these peculiar 
characters, which thej read over the sick persons. In 
diplomatic communications between different tribes belts 
were sent in which were placed various figures made of 
small shells of various colors, by which to instruct messen- 
gers, and preserve in their, recollection the objects of the 
embassy. The sacred character of a legal indenture was 
stamped only by a belt. On a journey records were writ- 
ten on birch-bark and left on trees for the information of 
parties following. A rock on the seashore at Machiasport 
furnishes an interesting example of this kind of writing, 
and it is probably the most extended Indian inscription in 
New England. 

Thus it will be seen that the Abenakis had not only a 
composite language, but had arrived at the conception of 
written characters and of communicatino; with each other 
by means of them. This is a long step in advance of the 
Pacific Islanders to whom communication by writing ap- 
peared to be a species of magic, utterly unaccountable to 
them. 

It is only of late that it has been even suspected that the 
Indians of Maine possessed a native literature rich in myths 
and legends. The recent researches of Mr. Leland among 
the Micmacs, the Passamaquoddies and the Penobscots has 
revealed the existence of an incredible number of ancient 
tales, many of them pre-Columbian. These have been 
preserved by oral communication from generation to gen- 
eration, and some of them now exist amono; the Indians in 



242 FRATEBNITY PAPEB8. 

written form. Dr. N. T. True informs me that when on a 
visit to the Penobscots a few years ago, he was told by one 
of their oldest and most intelligent men that they carefully 
repeat their old legends to the young, requiring them to 
commit them to memory and to repeat the same to their 
children. Thus the legends gathered by Mr. Leland have 
been preserved from generation to generation. They con- 
stitute a grand mythology, of which the original stock is 
to be found only among the Abenakis. These tales are of 
ethnological importance on account of their affinity with 
those of the Esquimaux, and with those of the Norsemen, 
as set forth in the Eddas and Sagas of Scandinavia. Many 
of these tales are witty and amusing and all are full of 
meaning. In one respect they may be said to be of the 
earth, earthy — that is to say, they deal as largely with na- 
ture as with man. They recognize man's kinship with the 
animal tribes, and fully accord with the development the- 
ory. Most of them turn on the transformation of men into 
animals and trees and of trees and animals into men. Even 
the gods assumed animal forms at will. The power of 
speech was a common possession of men and beasts, and 
the latter used it with marvellous wit. Indeed humor is a 
marked characteristic of these legends. We are told why 
the skin of a bullfrog is wrinkled, why the rattle is in the 
tail of the rattlesnake, how the loons came to have the 
strange, lone cry, so startling when heard for the first time ; 
and a thousand other things about the animals which are 
familiar to us all. The stories of Glooskap, the chief di- 



THE ABORIGINES. 24S 

vinity or hero, are endless in number, and many of them 
bear a strong resemblance to the legends of the Old Tes- 
tament, of Christianity and Buddhism. The disappear- 
ance of Glooskap is as poetical and mysterious as that of 
King Arthur. Indeed these myths were originally poems, 
and bear testimony to the poetic and imaginative tempera- 
ment of the Indians. Once they were rehgious. They 
have been cast into a new form, but they are not as yet 
quite degraded to the nursery tale. Mr. Leland says that 
^'the Abenaki of to-day may seem to the American Philis- 
tine to be a ragged, miserable, ignorant Indian ; but to the 
scholar he is by far the Philistine's superior in that which 
life is best worth living for" — which may be extravagant, 
but Mr. Leland is no sentimentalist. It is among these 
Indians that he finds this wealth of fancy, this strange my- 
thology, these witty fables, this noble poetry, and all the 
strange superstitions and arts of magic that are generally 
supposed to have been driven out by civilization. Who 
would suspect that our Penobscot and Passamaquoddy In- 
dians still preserve the fragments of a mythology which 
once peopled every rock, river and hill with fairies, elfs 
and heroes ? Nothing like these legends is to be found 
among really savage races. 

One of them in particular, gathered by Mr. Leland from 
an old Penobscot woman, is a master stroke of humor, 
illustrating a universal truth. Everybody knows that the 
Baby is lord of the household, that its rule is absolute, and 
that it is not to be conquered, but its supreme power was 



244 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

never more humorously set forth than in this legend of the 
mighty Wasis. You must know that in the Indian my- 
thology there was a great hero or god, powerful as Thor or 
Odin, whose name was Glooskap. This invincible hero had 
conquered ghosts, witches, devils and cannibals, and boast- 
ed of his mighty deeds. He thought there was nothing left 
for him to vanquish : 

"And he said this to a certain woman. But she replied, 
'Not so fast, master, for there yet remains one whom no 
one has ever conquered or got the better of in any way, 
and who will remain unconquered to the end of time.' 
'And who is he ?' inquired the master. 'It is the mighty 
Wasis,^ she replied, 'and there he sits ; and I warn you 
that if you meddle with him you will be in sore trouble.' 
Now Wasis was the Baby. And he sat on the floor suck- 
ing a piece of maple-sugar, greatly contented, troubling no 
one. As the Lord of Men and Beasts had never married 
or had a child, he knew naught of the way of managing 
children. Therefore he was quite certain, as is the wont 
of such people, that he knew all about it. So he turned 
to Baby with a bewitching smile and bade him come to him. 
Then Baby smiled again but did not budge. And the mas- 
ter spake sweetly and made his voice like that of the sum- 
mer bird, but it was of no avail, for Wasis sat still and 
sucked his maple sugar. Then the master frowned and 
spoke terribly, and ordered Wasis to come crawling to him 
immediately. And Baby burst out into crying and yelling, 
but did not move for all that. Then, since he could do but 



TEE ABORIGINES. 245 

one thing more, the master had recourse to magic. He 
used his most awful spells, and sang the songs which raise 
the dead and scare the devils. And Wasis sat and looked 
on admiringly, and seemed to find it very interesting, but 
all the same he never moved an inch. So Glooskap gave 
it up in despair, and Wasis sitting on the floor in the sun- 
shine, went goo ! goo ! and crowed. And to this day when 
you see a babe well contented, going ^oo.^ goo ! and crow- 
ing, and no one can tell why, know that it is because he 
remembers the time when he overcame the master who had 
conquered all the world. For of all the beings that have 
ever been since the beginning, Baby is alone the only in- 
vincible one." 

It remains only to consider the influence which the in- 
tercourse of the Indian with the white man exerted upon 
both races. The contact of inferior with superior races is 
not at first favorable to the improvement of either. The 
civilized man catches something of the barbarism of the 
savage ; the savage adopts the vices of civilization. The 
early Pilgrims and Puritans had few difficulties with the 
Indians. They brought with them the highest Christian 
civilization of the age, which for a time saved them from 
contamination by contact with savagery. The Indians had 
the virtues of primitive men, and received the new-comers 
hospitably. For fifty years there was no general war be- 
tween them. But it is society that preserves civilization. 
When isolated individuals segregate and come together in 
a new land they degenerate. We see this in the barbarism 



246 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

that prevails among our border population. It is only 
necessary to read the annual reports of the Governor of 
Dakota or any other western territory, to learn how little 
of real civilization there is in the newer sections of our 
country. Isolation and contact with savagery had its in- 
fluence on the Puritans and the Pilgrims. Their children 
and grandchildren degenerated as compared with the first 
generation. They knew not of the harder trials of their 
fathers, and failed to practice their higher virtues. It was 
a contest for supremacy between barbarism and civilization, 
and the former had the advantage of prior occupation of 
the land. For a time the result hung trembling in the bal- 
ance. If a few Indians became nominal Christians, quite 
as many sons and daughters of the Pilgrims adopted the 
life of the Indians. Not a few lapsed into barbarism. 
Taken captive by the Indians in youth, they refused to 
return to the ways of civilization. They were captivated 
by the almost incurable fascination of savage life. Eunice, 
the daughter of John Williams, could not be induced to 
leave the Indians, having herself become an Indian in habit 
and language. She married an Indian, and their supposed 
grandson, or great grandson, was Eleazer Williams, once 
notorious in this country for his claim to be the Dauphin, 
son of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette. One of the 
most famous of the Indian chiefs of Maine, Orono, was the 
son of a white man, who, captured in his youth, refused to 
return to civilization. The education and culture of the 
second and third generation of the Pilgrims was not of the 



THE ABORIGINES. 247 

sort in which their parents had been reared. Their minis- 
ters were of their own homes and not from the universities 
of England. A spirit of greed and aggrandizement pos- 
sessed the people, and they attempted to better their tem- 
poral condition by pushing back the frontier. They began 
to cheat the Indians in trade, to give them "firewater" in 
order to create trouble among them and cause them to give 
their valuable furs for nothing. The consequent wars con- 
duced to savagery on the part of the whites. They adopted 
savage methods of warfare. Cruelty was met with cruelty. 
Rewards were offered for Indian scalps. Lovewell's heroes 
were but a band of mercenary guerrillas, murdering In- 
dians at so much a head. 

The Indian did not improve under this treatment. On 
the contrary he degenerated. He lost his savage virtues, 
and contracted the vices of civilization. He underwent a 
material deterioration in his physical as well as his mental 
faculties. He lost even, in some degree, the early arts in 
which he had attained a high degree of skill. He once 
knew more of astronomy than he does to-day, he had once 
a now forgotten system of hand-writing by hieroglyphics. 
Adopting white man's ways and implements he lost his skill 
in his own simple manufactures. The ancient pottery dug 
up to-day is superior to that of a later time, and at Moose- 
head Lake they tell you that the white men there make 
better canoes than the Indian of to-day. 

The truth is the civilization of the Indian was arrested 
by the superior civilization of the white man. It was not 



248 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

that he was incapable of advancement as has been held — 
but that he could only advance in his own way, along his 
own line of development. The sudden attempt to assim- 
ilate what was foreign to the whole tenor of his personal 
habits, confirmed as they were by centuries of inherited 
experience, was fatal to him. Races are civilized through 
generations. The Indian was many generations behind 
the white man. He was not on the same plane with him. 
It was too much of a leap for the Indian to attain English 
civilization. His attempted training by the Puritans was 
too intellectual. Only an individual here and there, like 
Samson Occum, was capable of it. Cecum became a dis- 
tinguished preacher, but he was an exception. The early 
colleges were established for the education of the Indians, 
but the first graduate died early. He was killed by too 
much cultivation. There was need of evolution through 
generations. 

But who shall say what advancement the Indian might 
have made if he had been left to develope in his own way? 
The Iroquois had attained a civilization not far behind that 
of the nineteenth century. Their laws and customs, based 
as they were on freedom and personal right, excited the 
admiration of the early Jesuit missionaries. They were 
proficient in many of the household arts. Though com- 
paratively few in numbers, by their superior intelligence 
and organization, they made their power felt from the ocean 
to the Mississippi. They were the virtual rulers of the 
central part of North America. The development of a 



THE ABORIGINES. 249 

race is often brought about by the springing up among them 
of an individual of superior intelligence. History is full 
of such instances, and these superior persons become the 
heroes and demi-gods of mythology. The Iroquois were 
largely civilized by the organizing power of their great chief, 
Hiawatha. He is no myth, no creation of Longfellow's. 
He was a real personage. Pained by the strifes existing 
between the neighboring tribes, he made it his life work to 
bring them into a confederation for the purposes of peace. 
He lived to complete the work upon which his heart was 
set, and formed a nation so strong that in after years both 
England and France made every effort to secure an alli- 
ance ; and this alliance once formed was an important fac- 
tor in determining the English supremacy in America. 

The Indians of Martha's Vineyard, secluded from inter- 
course with the whites, were Christianized by the labors of 
the Mayhews. They were enabled to prevent them from 
joining in King Philip's war. The results of the teachings 
of five generations of Mayhews is seen in the noble hero- 
ism and self-sacrificing spirit displayed by the Christian 
Indians of Gay Head in rescuing the passengers of the 
wrecked steamship City of Columbus. 

The Indians of Maine were subjected to unfavorable 
influences. They lived in peace with the white adventur- 
ers here for fifty years, though their hospitable welcome of 
them was too often repaid by kidnapping, outrage and cheat- 
ery. When the encroachments of the Massachusetts colo- 
nists had driven the Indians of that Province into war, they 



250 FRATERNITY PAPEES. 

invited their brethren of Maine to join them in their futile 
effort to drive out the white men. The wars of Massachu- 
setts were fought in Maine. In after years the Jesuits 
stirred them to war with the English. Thus the rivalries 
of white men incited them to deeds of cruelty. They were 
ground between the upper and the nether millstone. Une- 
qual to the contest they retired to the St. Francis, leaving 
a lingering remnant, who now form the Passamaquoddy 
and Penobscot tribes. The advancement of these tribes 
has been hindered by their subjection to a religion and a 
hierarchy in antagonism with the people among whom they 
dwell, and by their suspicion of, and want of confidence in, 
the descendants of those with whom their forefathers fought. 
What then shall we say of the aborigines of Maine ? 
Shall we continue to think of them as "monsters in human 
shape," "children of the Devil," as our ancestors painted 
them ? Shall we not rather regard them simply as men 
who had made a considerable advance in civilization, but 
whose further progress was arrested by contact with a supe- 
rior civilization with which they could not suddenly assim- 
ilate ? What was their status in the scale of humanity ? 
They were an ancient people, with remote traditions. Their 
language was composite and comparatively refined. They 
had acquired some skill in the domestic arts. They dwelt 
in villages. They cultivated the earth. They had a rude 
form of elective government. They had acquired the art 
of communicating ideas by written characters. They had 
a legendary literature transmitted orally from generation 



THE ABORIGINES. 251 

to generation. Thej worshipped the Great Spirit and be- 
lieved in an hereafter. These acquirements placed them 
far on the road towards the civilization of the age in which 
they were discovered. They were cruel in war, treacher- 
ous at times, but so were our forefathers. On the other 
hand they possessed many manly qualities. They were hos- 
pitable, grateful, faithful in friendship, sober until the white 
man came, strong in their family affections, and in their love 
of liberty ; eloquent in speech and heroic in their endurance 
of famine and torture. Their better qualities have been 
overlaid in the prominence given to their savage traits. 
These have been exaggerated by misconception of their 
conditions, and a failure to recognize the restraints and dis- 
abilities imposed upon them by the presence of a superior 
and stronger race. Thus their fiendish aspect assumed in 
war, like the rebel yell in our own civil war, was merely 
their method of striking terror to the hearts of their ene- 
mies. Their habit of ambuscading and fighting behind 
trees was the natural mode of warfare for a forest-dwelling 
people. They were not trained to fight in the open field, 
and why should they abandon their method of warfare to 
adopt that of the white man, greatly to his advantage ? 
The charge of bad faith grew largely out of misconception 
of treaties, the white man often putting a different con- 
struction upon them to that which they bore to the Indian. 
The Indians were by no means the stoics they have been 
represented, taciturn, unbending, without a smile or a tear. 
Taciturn they were when in company with white men whose 



252 FRATEENITY PAPERS. 

good will thej distrusted, and whose language they did not 
understand. White men are equally taciturn under like 
circumstances. But among themselves the Indians were 
great gossips, spending half their time in talking over their 
adventures in war and hunting, in telling whimsical stories, 
and in mimicking and making fun of white men's ways. 
They indulged in boisterous merriment at their games, and 
sat around the midnight fire engaged in the most lively and 
animated conversation, at times making the woods resound 
with laughter. As to tears, they had them in abundance, 
both real and affected. No one wept more bitterly or pro- 
fusely at the death of a relative or friend, no one more sin- 
cerely mourned the dead. They had stated times when 
they repaired to howl and lament at their graves. 

As to their capacity for civihzation — so long denied — 
that has been established by the history of the Cherokees. 
They have had the benefit of time, the great element 
needed for their advantage. Two hundred and fifty years 
ago they were brought under civilizing influences. At first 
the contact was injurious, but time went on, and one hun- 
dred and twenty years ago they had attained a very con- 
siderable degree of advancement. To-day they have be- 
come thoroughly acclimatized, are a highly civilized people, 
rapidly increasing in population. 

Those who have had most to do with the Indians speak 
most highly of them. Gen. Crook, the Indian fighter of 
our day, finds the Indians not half so black as they have 
been painted, possessed of a nature responsive to a treat- 



THE ABORIGINES. 253 

merit which assures them that it is based upon justice, truth, 
honesty, and common sense. 

He finds it possible that "with a fair and square system 
of dealing with him, the American Indian would make a 
better citizen than many who neglect the duties and abuse 
the privileges of that proud title." Bishop Whipple, who 
has spent a life-time among the Indians, declares that "the 
North American Indian is the noblest type of a heathen 
man on the face of the earth." Our contact with them 
has been too close to admit of a true perspective. We 
have failed to grasp their highest characteristics. As they 
fade away in the remoteness of time we shall see them in 
a truer light. We shall wonder that when they were with 
us we knew so little of them. We shall study every scrap 
of their remaining arts, language and legends, and recog- 
nize in them something remote and lofty, arousing compar- 
isons with our own civilized ideals — something that our lit- 
erature and portrait painting has never yet caught, and 
which will be then past recovery. When that time comes 
the sentiment of reverence for the past, for the memory of 
those who have gone before us, may well erect, on some 
lofty headland on our rugged sea-coast, the colossal statue 
of an Indian chief welcoming our forefathers to the land 
which was then his people's, but has now become our own. 



THE PURITAN SERMON, 



The sermon with which I purpose to deal is that earnest 
utterance which brought about the settlement of New Eng- 
land, and for two centuries shaped its policy. I shall treat 
of it from an historical, rather than a theological point of 
view, considering it as an institution shaping not only the 
religious beliefs of our people, but their form of govern- 
ment, their social life and their mental traits. 

When Archbishop Laud persecuted the English Puritans 
he builded better than he knew. His passion for a cere- 
monial worship and his zeal for church uniformity led him 
to despise the "foolishness of preaching." He set up a 
ritualistic service abhorrent to those who looked upon the 
Church of Rome as the mother of abominations, and his 
intolerant spirit would not permit that expounding of doc- 
trines which earnest men, who felt that they had a message 
to deliver, considered the chief function of their office. 

They fled before his relentless persecution to the wilds 
of New England. They came here to preach ; the deliv- 
ery of the sermon, forbidden in their native land, became 
the aim and object of their hves. Thus, as another has 



TEE PURITAN SERMON. 255 

said, "the preacher and the sermon, already detested in 
England, were happily inaugurated on New England soil, 
the chiefest feature in her future policy and history, her 
very life." 

The clergy who were banished by Laud were preachers 
above all things. They planted a church first and set up 
civil government afterwards. Their people built a meeting- 
house and chose a minister before incorporating a town. 
They founded a college almost immediately upon landing, 
that the race of preachers might not fail. A minister of 
the gospel was the first necessity of life. Among the ear- 
liest records of Massachusetts there is a memorandum of 
articles needed there, to be procured from England, and 
among them are beans, peas, vine-planters, potatoes, hop- 
roots, pewter-bottles, brass ladles, spoons, and ministers — 
and the ministers come not last, but first. 

These ministers set up a theocracy which lasted for more 
than half a century, and which legislated in the most pa- 
rental and sumptuary fashion about everything, no matter 
how trifling, which they conceived could in any way affect 
morals. But the sermon was a more powerful regulating 
force than even the laws. It dealt with every topic of mor- 
als or government, and it was delivered on all occasions — at 
the wedding and at the funeral, on fast days and on days of 
thanksgiving, in times of rejoicing and in seasons of sor- 
row. The services of the sanctuary were all subordinated 
to the delivery of the sermon. The Bible was not read in 
the pulpit, music entered into the service only in the mea- 



256 FBATEBNITY PAPERS. 

grej lining out of the hymn, and the Sunday School — un- 
heard of in the early days — was considered on its introduc- 
tion two centuries later, as a desecration of the Sabbath, 
the best church members, in some instances, refusing to 
send their children to it. 

The sermon was all in all. It supplied the places of 
amusements and of politics. It was without a competitor 
in the eye or mind of the community. They had no news- 
papers, no theatres, no miscellaneous lectures, no entertain- 
ments of secular music or of secular oratory, no temper- 
ance lecturer, no civil service reformer — none of the ge- 
nial distractions of our modern life. The place of all these 
was filled by the sermon. "It was the central and com- 
manding incident in their lives ; the one stately spectacle 
for all men and all women, year after year ; the grandest 
matter of anticipation or of memory ; the theme for hot 
disputes on which all New England would take sides, and 
which would seem sometimes to shake the world to its cen- 
ter." Its delivery was the whole aim of the Puritan pohty. 

So important an institution must not be lightly dealt with. 
In treating of it I propose, 

Mrst, to speak of the men who preached it ; 

Secondly^ of the day consecrated to its delivery ; 

Thirdly^ of the meeting-house in which it was delivered ; 

Fourthly., of the congregation who listened to it ; 

Fifthly., of the sermon itself ; and 

Lastly., of its influence in shaping the lives of those who 
heard it, and the institutions under which they lived. 



THE PURITAN SERMON. 257 

I am aware that in propounding this formidable array of 
heads I am approaching perilously near to sermonizing 
ground, but the reader may take note, for his encourage- 
ment, that I have stopped short of seventhly. 

It is evident that the men who were to preach this ser- 
mon were held to a high standard of character and learn- 
ing. They were picked men. As Wm. Stoughton said in 
his election sermon of 1688, ''God sifted a whole nation 
that He might send choice grain into the wilderness." Only 
the bravest and the best could withstand the persecuting 
zeal of Laud, and go forth, across a stormy ocean, to seek 
in a savage land that freedom of utterance which was de- 
nied them at home. The ministers of the Puritan emigra- 
tion were men of birth, education and breeding. Many 
of them were prodigies of learning. Of John Cotton it 
was said that he was "indeed a most universal scholar, a 
living system of the liberal arts, and a walking library." 
His sand-glass, running four hours, and turned over three 
times, measured his "scholar's day." Increase Mather, 
by force of his learning, his logic, his sense, his eloquence 
and his tireless energy, wielded a tremendous influence for 
almost sixty years. The clergy were almost the only 
learned men in the community, and they bore themselves 
as leaders. Theirs was an intellectual leadership, in every 
sense honorable, both for the leaders and the led. They 
made their office great. They deserved their pre-eminence, 
for they had wisdom, great learning, great force of will, 
devout consecration, philanthropy, purity of life. They 



258 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

had profound reverence for the office and work of a Chris- 
tian pastor. Believing the pastoral office had no superior, 
they refused to bow to governors or kings. Their great 
authority was seldom abused, but it was never forgotten. 
They formed an ecclesiastical aristocracy, who not only 
sanctified and cemented the parish, but founded the State, 
and moulded the soldier and the statesman. In their per- 
sons Church and State were combined. 

Filling so eminent a position, it is not wonderful that 
they were regarded with awe and reverence. The writ- 
ino-s of our earliest times are full of reference to the 
majesty of their looks, the awe inspired by their presence, 
the grandeur and power of their words. Their ascendency 
was heightened by the clerical costume of cocked hat, 
black silk gown, breeches and long stockings ; as also by 
the elevation of their pulpits, far aloft, and as remote as 
possible from the congregation, typifying the awful distance, 
and the elevation of the sacred office which there exercised 
its mightiest function. They were regarded with a rever- 
ance, not to say awe, wholly foreign to the mind at the 
present day. The boy in the street would scarcely 
venture to pass one, on the opposite sidewalk, without 
pulling off his cap — if he did not hide behind the fence. 
To speak ill of ministers was a species of sedition. In 
1636 a citizen of Boston was fined forty pounds, and forced 
to make a public apology, for saying all the ministers but 
three preached a covenant of works. They were men of 
faith, — faith in God, and in their own view of His justice 



THE PURITAN SERMON. 259 

and mercy. They believed that man had fallen from his 
high estate, and that he would alone be restored through 
the atonement of Christ. They were austere, they were 
narrow, they were intolerant, but they were conscientious 
and sincere, and they were not inconsistent, for they did 
not come to New England to establish religous liberty as 
we understand it, but to set up a theocracy of united be- 
lievers. Life with them was a very serious matter. The 
Rev. Thomas Parker, once hearing some of his friends 
laughing very freely, while he was busied in his chamber 
above, came down and gravely said to them, "Cousms, 
I wonder you can be so merry, unless you are sure of your 
salvation." 

These men exercised an ascendency over the public in 
matters outside of their pulpit ministrations. In a measure 
they monopolized the functions of all the learned profes- 
sions. They anticipated the lawyer in the settlement of 
differences, and they ministered to the bodies as well as the 
souls of their congregations. Some of them were authors 
of the earhest medical treatises printed in America. Fore- 
seeing the possibility of ejectment, a number of them 
studied medicine before leaving their old homes ; hence 
they formed a large proportion of the early physicians of 
Massachusetts. Cotton Mather speaks of this union of the 
two professions as an "Angelical conjunction," and says 
that "ever since the days of Luke, the Evangelist, skill in 
Physic has been frequently professed and practiced by 
persons whose more declared business was the study of di- 



260 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

vinitj." For many years, in the early settlement of ancient 
Falmouth, Parson Smith performed the responsible part of 
physician to the body as well as the soul. Under date of 
Nov. 7th, 1748, he says in his journal, "I am hurried 
perpetually with the sick ; the whole practice rests on me, 
and God gives me reputation, with satisfaction of mind, as 
being a successful instrument in his hand." It was very 
common for ministers in thinly settled towns, to discharge 
this two-fold duty. 

In the education of the people they were also prominent 
as leaders. They began at the top and built downward. 
They established the college first and the common school 
afterwards. The Puritan theory of life led at once to uni- 
versal education, and in this the clergy builded better than 
they knew, for they thereby broke down their own author- 
ity. The decline of clerical influence dates from the 
universal education of the people. A duty was laid on 
mackerel for the support of free schools, thus as Thoreau 
says, ''taxing the mackerel schools, that the children's 
schools might be free !" 

Perhaps no class of men ever more grandly illustrated 
the precept of "plain living and high thinking," than the 
clergy of New England. Their very poverty made them 
self-reticent and original theologians. The wonder is how 
they lived and brought up large families, and sent their 
boys to college, on the salaries they received. On his 
way from the plow to the pulpit many a New England boy 
endured great hardships and practiced a self-denial un- 



TEE PURITAN SERMON. 261 

known to the youth of our day. In the best of times the 
minister's salary ranged only from §250 to 1400 a year, 
and it was seldom paid in money. The shifts resorted to 
for the purpose of raising the minister's salary are among 
the earliest illustrations of the economic genius of the 
New England people. On Cape Cod it was voted in town 
meeting that the whales cast on shore should be appropri- 
ated to the sup]iort of the ministry. ' "It was very fit," 
says Thoreau, "that ministers, who were the servants of 
Providence should be cast upon Providence for their sup- 
port ; when few whales were stranded they might conclude 
their preaching was not acceptable ! How anxiously they 
must have watched the shores, and sat upon the crags in 
the storm, peering into the very bowels of the billows." 
They must have had a trying time. But doubtless they 
fared better than the Parsons of the present day, for the 
salaries of few country ministers can now be said to be 
"very like a whale." 

The salary of Rev. Mr. Browne, of the old South church 
in ancient Falmouth, was paid in corn, rye and wheat, with 
the addition of good cord wood, at ten shillings a cord, beef 
at two pence, two farthings per pound. In 1747 the sal- 
ary of Parson Smith, of Falmouth, was $167 in silver, and 
the good man takes a thankful view of the liberality of the 
parish in raising it to 8250 in silver. Jonathan Edwards, 
the best type of the metaphysical and theological mind, 
the greatest philosopher and theologian of his age, was so 
poor that it may be said with perfect truth that he often 



262 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

needed the necessaries of life. His great works, which 
won him a reputation in Europe, were written on the backs 
and ends of letters received from friends, for the reason 
that he could not afford to buy paper for the purpose. His 
salary at Stockbridge was 133 a year, together "with one 
hundred slay loads of wood ; that is to say, the Indians 
are to get eighty loads, the English twenty." The father 
of Chief Justice PaVsons was settled at Byfield with an 
annual salary of |280. He had a large family of children, 
three of whom he sent through Harvard College, and all 
of whom received an excellent education, and occupied 
positions of influence in the world. The Rev. Daniel Gould 
was settled in Bethel, Maine, in 1799 on a salary of |160 
a year, to be increased |10 a year, and to be paid one-third 
in money and two-thirds in produce. The Rev. Moses 
Sweat, who preached in Sanford, Maine, from 1786 to 
1822, at first received a salary of f 300 a year, but the 
Baptists making inroads on his parish he relinquished two- 
thirds of his salary and for thirty years preached on 8100 
a year. Having a large stock of sermons on hand he was 
obhged to spend but little time in preparation for the pul- 
pit, and devoted most of his time to agricultural pursuits. 

Many of the clergy in the rural towns were farmers, and 
earned a good portion of their bread by the sweat of their 
brow. Some of their perquisites were of a peculiar nature. 
In Sandwich, Mass., the parson was permitted to pasture 
his horse in the graveyard — thus gaining a portion of his 
living from the dead. In ancient Falmouth, as in many 



THE PURITAN SERMON. 263 

Other towns, a tax was laid upon strangers for the benefit 
of the minister, a contribution being taken up from stran- 
gers each Sabbath. This continued until 1801, when the 
parish, probably ashamed of the inhospitable custom, al- 
lowed Dr. Deane a yearly sum of £5 instead of the con- 
tribution. 

When every citizen was compelled by law to contribute 
to the support of the clergy, or "the standing order," it 
was sometimes necessary to resort to the law in order to 
collect the parish taxes. In 1805 a citizen of Wiscasset 
was sent to jail for refusing to pay the sum of $1.48 set 
down as his proportion of the sum of 1243.98 granted and 
agreed upon for the support of the gospel ministry ; and 
as late as 1812 the cow of William Buxton, of North Yar- 
mouth, was distrained for the non-payment of his parish 
tax, said tax amounting to 15.78, said cow being sold for 
$10.80, the fees and expenses of the collector amounting 
to $1.24, leaving $3.78, which sum the collector pays 
over to the said Buxton. 

In the matter of support the Puritan clergy had one ad- 
vantage over the ministers of the present day. They were 
settled for life, and were thus not only relieved of the ne- 
cessity of looking for a new parish every few years, and of 
the danger of being cast out in old age, but they were 
enabled from their long continuance to exert a great influ- 
ence in the communities Avhere they lived. They came to 
be recognized in every town as the standards of religion 
and morality, pillars of society, around which clustered the 



264 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

holiest associations of life. Their influence was widely felt. 
The beloved pastor, who had married the parents and chris- 
tened the children, and married the grandchildren, came 
to be looked up to as the spiritual father of his flock in a 
sense little understood in these days of short pastorates. 
Many of the early pastors lived to a great age, and grew 
old among their own people. Rev. Thomas Smith, of Fal- 
mouth, after a ministry of sixty-eight years and two months, 
died in 1795 in the ninety-fourth year of his age ; and the 
Rev. Ebenezer Gay, of Hingham, Mass., preached there 
for almost seventy years, and was ninety years old when 
death came to him one Sunday morning, as he was prepar- 
ing for the usual services of the day. Such lives as these 
could but be reverenced, and leave a lasting influence in 
the land. 

Yet all was not smooth and harmonious in the relations 
between pastors and people. Sometimes the preacher 
carried things with too high a hand ; sometimes the parish 
was rebellious. In the early records of North Yarmouth is 
this entry of an article in the warrant for the town meeting : 
"Is the town easy, or uneasy under the preaching of the 
Rev. Mr. Brown? voted, uneasy ; adjourned." As time 
went on the uneasy element in the parishes widened and 
increased until the "standing order" was abolished, and no 
man was compelled to sit uneasy under any man's preach- 
ing. 

Austere as were the Puritan clergy we are not to sup- 
pose that they never relaxed or unbent. It was not possi- 



THE PURITAN SERMON. 265 

ble always to live up to the literal harshness of their creed. 
Gradually without any recognized change of faith, there 
was less rigid adherence to the five points of Calvinism, less 
austerity in daily life. As the people grew strong and pros- 
perous, less anxious about their living and their hold upon 
the country, the temper of the times became more genial. 
Men might wear their hair short, or as long as they pleased, 
without sin, and they even began to laugh and to dance, 
though still with some rigidity of feature and awkwardness 
of limb. Even the clergy unbent at times. Ordinations 
became very like jollifications. Parson Smith makes note 
of the ordination of Rev. Samuel Eaton, of Harpswell, and 
adds — "The young folks have had a rampant frolic of it." 
On another similar occasion he writes, "It was a jolly ordi- 
nation, and they lost sight of decorum." 

From a class of men such as I have here delineated we 
have a right to expect transmitted traits of a high order. 
Professor Phelps remarks that '-a minister who is the son 
of a minister finds no other influence in his professional 
training, so valuable as the influence, obvious or latent, of 
his father. The mental life stream flows from father to 
son with a more elastic continuity than is often realized in 
any other profession." I^he clerical order of New England 
provided for its own progress and improvement by the freest 
discussion within recognized limits. As time went on, and 
truth was evolved by endless controversy, the grim features 
of Calvinism were relaxed, the clerical mind broadened, 
became less dogmatic, more tolerant, took a wider view of 



266 FRATERNITY PAPEE8. 

man and his relations to the unseen, until at last it flow- 
ered in the character and intellect of Ralph Waldo Emer- 
son. He was the eighth, in orderly succession, of a con- 
secutive line of ministers. In him the clerical mind of 
New England worked itself clear of dogma, and rose to 
the serenest heights, producing, in the words of Prof. Tyn- 
dall, the "loftiest, purest and most penetrating spirit that 
has ever shone in American literature." 

The Day consecrated to the delivery of the Puritan 
sermon was the Jewish Sabbath intensified. It was a far 
different institution from that relic of paganism, a Parisian 
or Roman Sunday. The Puritan mind revolted from the 
idea of making the day of worship a season of amusements. 
They preferred to bull-fights and bear-baitings and May- 
games the old Mosaic Sabbath, and the psalms and hymns 
which had rung through a thousand years of Christian 
song. When grave statesmen and reverend bishops advis- 
ed, and the king decreed, that the odious "Book of Sports" 
should be announced to his subjects from every pulpit in 
the kingdom on Sunday, and the sports therein recorded 
should be practiced in the afternoon, after the church ser- 
vice, — they revolted. Considering that they had their share 
of human nature it is not surprising that when they were 
urged, bribed, cajoled, commanded, threatened, browbeaten 
to induce them to dance around a May pole, they swung 
to the other extreme, and formulated a day of rest that 
was absolutely terrible in its grimness. 

The Puritan Sabbath began at six o'clock on the evening 



THE PURITAN SERMON. 267 

of Saturday, and lasted until sunset or Sunday. No labor 
could be performed on the evening which preceded the 
Lord's Day. The time was devoted to preparation for the 
Sabbath. Religious services began at 9 o'clock in the 
morning, and occupied from six to eight hours, divided by 
an intermission of one hour for dinner. All work of every 
description was suspended ; while amusements and sports, 
rare enough on week days, were absolutely prohibited. 
There was no travelling, no movement in the streets, noth- 
ing but religious exercises at home and in church. No 
traveller could be entertained, and the constables made the 
rounds on Saturday evening to see that all taverns were 
closed. Every one was compelled to attend meeting, and 
the order maintained in meeting was of the severest kind. 
A luckless maid servant of Plymouth who smiled in church, 
was threatened with banishment as a vagabond. Increase 
Mather, in a sermon, attributed the terrible conflagration 
in Boston, in the year 1711, to carrying burdens, and 
practicing servile employments, such as baking, on the Sab- 
bath ; and his son. Cotton Mather, said it was a warning 
from the Holy One, for non-attendance on the Thursday 
lecture. In the middle of the eighteenth century no one 
was allowed in Boston to go in or out of town on Sunday ; 
the gates were shut, the ferry guarded, and men were 
seized in the country. There was no trading, no walking 
to the water's edge, or even in summer on the Common. 
No barber could ply his trade, no public house was open, 
two or three people talking in the street were likely to be 



268 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

dispersed or arrested, and justices went about with consta- 
bles to enforce the laws. Men were arrested for carrying 
bundles in the street, and the selectmen of the country 
towns stopped all travellers who came within their reach. 
At the period of the Kevolution everything stopped on 
Sunday; the streets Avere deserted, except between ser- 
vices, for every one was either in his own house or at church. 
The only business of the day was the delivery of the Ser- 
mon, and its discussion by the people. 

Perhaps the spirit of the Puritan Sunday was never bet- 
ter expressed than in Longfellow's New England Tragedy 
of John Endicott. The scene is in Boston in the year 
1665. On a Sunday, Nicholas Upsall, an old man, seated 
in the porch of his house, soliloquizes thus — 

"O daj' of rest! How beautiful, how fair, 
, How welcome to the weary and the old! 
Day of the Lord, and truce to earthlj^ cares 
Day of the Lord, as all our days should be ! 
Ah! why will man by his austerities 
Shut out the blessed sunshine and the light, 
And make of thee a dungeon of despair! 

( Walter Mernj, the tithing man, entering and looking around.) 
All silent as a gravej'ard! No one stirring; 
No footfall in the street, no sound of voices! 
By righteous punishment and perseverence. 
And perseverence in that punishment. 
At last I've brought this contumacious town 
To strict observance of the Sabbath day. 
Those wanton gosi)ellers, the pigeons yonder, 
Are now the only Sabbath-breakers left. 
I cannot put them down. As if to taunt me. 
They gather every Sabbath afternoon 
In noisy congregation on my roof, 
Billing and cooing. Whir ! take that, ye Quakers. 



THE PURITAN iSERMON. 269 

(Throws a itone at the pigeons. Sees Upsall.) 
Ah ! Master Nicholas ! 
Upsall. Dear Neighbor Walter. 
Mkury. Master Nicholas, 

You have to-day withdrawn yourself from meeting. 
Upsall. Yea, I have chosen rather to worghij) God 
Sitting in silence here at my own door. 
Merry. Worship the Devil ! You this day have broken 
Three of our strictest laws. First, by abstaining 
From public worship. Secondly by walking 
Profanely on the Sabbath — 
Upsall. Not one step. 

I have been sitting still here, seeing the pigeons 
Feed in the street, and fly about the roofs. 
Merry. You have been in the street with other intent 
Than going to and fro from the Meeting-house. 
And thirdly, you are harboring Quakers here. 
I am amazed." 

On this great day of the week the meeting-house was 
the central point of interest in every community. It was 
the one public building around which clustered the ideals 
and institutions of the land. Near it stood the school- 
house, and not far off were the stocks and the whipping- 
post. It stood upon a hill top that its light might shine 
afar. It was the cradle of virtue and of national liberty. 
All the spiritual aspirations of the people centered in it. 
It was plain, bare, homely, unadorned, -the work of an as- 
cetic race. Here were no fine art, no touch of beauty, no 
aspirations manifest in lavish wealth of consecrated orna- 
ment ; no sentiment of pious ardor finding utterance in 
sacred symbols. It was the poor meeting-house of a poor 
people, of a people, moreover, to whom the adornment 
of the church and the pomp of ritual were an abomination, 
and who rejected all the imagery of earlier ages of piety, 



270 FBATEENITT PAPERS. 

even the deepest, tenderest symbols of the faith, because 
associated with superstition and confounded with idolatry. 
Yet to them this plain house was more truly the gate of 
heaven than if it had been of pearl, like the gates of the 
New Jerusalem. 

The first meeting-houses erected by the colonists were 
built of logs, and had a cannon on the top. They were 
temporal as well as spiritual strongholds. They were forts 
as well as churches and served as places of defence and 
refuge in time of war. The armed sentinel stood at the 
door on the Sabbath day. Thoreau says that at Eastham, 
they built a church with holes in the roof, through which 
to fire at the devil — but Thoreau was a scofier. Often, 
however, the powder was kept in small closets within the 
sacred desk — probably because it was the driest spot in 
town. Sinners who attended preaching in such strong- 
holds stood a double chance of getting "a blowing up." 

At a later period meeting-houses were built of brick, 
with clay plastered over the courses, and covered with 
clay-boards, whence comes our word clapboards.) the roof 
was thatched, and upon the outer walls were fastened the 
heads of all the wolves killed during the season. In these 
rude structures there were no pews, the congregation being 
assigned places upon the bare benches. 

Still later came the old representative meeting-house, 
some specimens of which have come down to our times. 
It was a huge, ungainly block, cubical or nearly so, two sto- 
ries in height, furnished within with galleries, and without 



THE PURITAN SERMON. 271 

with a stunted tower. Sometimes it had a hipped roof, a 
small cupola in the center, surmounted by a pole, on which 
perched a rooster. No bell rang from the steeple. In 
early times the blowing of a horn called the people to- 
gether ; at times a flag was hung out as the signal of wor- 
ship, and again a drum was beaten in true military style. 
The first church bell in Maine was rung in 1753 over the 
First Parish church in what is now Portland. 

The interior of the meeting-house had its odd features 
as well as the exterior. The pulpit was lofty, reserved, 
and imposing, lifting the preacher far above his congrega- 
tion, as the wider platform of the present day brings him 
down to their level, each typifying the position of him who 
occupies it. Over the pulpit hung the sounding board, so 
suspended as to repeat the preacher's voice and send it 
forth the better to his hearers. In front was the "deacon's 
seat" where reposed those worthies in visible emblem of 
ecclesiastical order and authority. The pews were large 
square boxes, or pens, close-doored, high-walled, and railed 
around the top. The seats were all furnished with hinges, 
so that in rising for prayers they could be raised and sus- 
tained against the back of the pew ; when the long prayer 
was ended, they all went down with a simultaneous slam, 
which not unfrequently drowned the " Amen, " of the 
preacher, and could be heard by any one living within half 
a mile of the house. 

Cushions and carpets were vanity. No common heat 
was provided in winter, the individual foot-stove being the 



272 FBATERNITY PAPERS, 

only source of warmth. It seems incredible that men, wo- 
men and children could leave their hearth-stones, where 
they enjoyed the blazing heat of the old fashioned fires, 
and travel six or seven miles in the severity of winter, to 
sit in the meeting-house two or three hours, enveloped in a 
rigorous atmosphere, untempered by any artificial warmth. 
The women as we have said, had their foot-stoves ; the men 
generally took some internal stimulus to keep them warm, 
and if that proved inadequate they assisted the circulation by 
knocking their feet together. How severe must have been 
the trial on a stormy Sunday in winter, when the bleak winds 
whistled around the house, rattling the twenty or thirty 
windows, and the snow was sifting in through the cracks 
and crannies. One cannot fail to sympathize with that 
preacher who on one such occasion announced the text — 
"Who can stand before His cold ?" and immediately closed 
the services with the usual blessing. And yet the more 
staid members of his congregation, who had come through 
a furious wintry storm, were a little dissatisfied. Those 
good people had come to feel that the severer the trials and 
endurances to listen to the word of God, the more accept- 
able and profitable was the attendance on the service of 
the sanctuary ; — how difl^'erent from the church-goers of 
our day, who have, come to think that the more comfortable 
they can make themselves the nearer they get to Heaven ! 
But one provision our ascetic ancestors did make for 
their Sabbath day comfort. An important and interest- 
ing adjunct of the meeting-house was the Sabba'-Day 



THE PURITAN SERMON. 21 S 

House. These were built for the accommodation of those 
families who lived too far away to return home at noon. 
They were rude structures, consisting of two small rooms, 
with a chimney in the center between them, and a fire- 
place in each room. On the morning of the Sabbath the 
owner of these rooms deposited there his saddle-bag con- 
taining the necessary refreshment for himself and family, 
and a bottle of beer or cider ; he built a fire, warmed him- 
self and family, and at the hour of worship was ready to 
sally forth to encounter the rigors of the sermon. Return- 
ing at the noon intermission, the luncheon was eaten, and 
genial warmth restored. 

A group of such cabins standing aboat the meeting- 
house added not a httle to the picturesqueness of the spot, 
and their use conduced greatly to the convenience and 
comfort of Sabbath worship. But the truth of history com- 
pels me to say that between Sabbaths they occasionally 
furnished the wild young men of the parish with secure 
haunts for unseemly carousals. 

The building of the meeting-house was an event of great 
importance. After long discussion in town meeting, some- 
times evoking bitter differences of opinion as to locality, 
the site was decided upon. Then the men went into the 
woods to cut the timber, and haul it to the spot. At 
length the great gala day arrived, when the several parts 
of the sacred structure were to be lifted into position, an 
event at which the whole population assisted. The town 
voted abundant supplies of rum, sugar, cider and other 



2 11 


8 


3 


4 


1 14 


9 1-2 


1 2 


10 


1 


6" 



274 FEATEBNITY PAPERS. 

refreshments, to give spirited assistance to the work. At 
the raising of the church in Topsfield, in 1759, the follow- 
ing bill of expense was returned to the town : 

"to Thirty four Gallons of Rum and half an Hundred wait of Su- 
gar ten pound, ten shilling & eleven pence £10 10s lid. 
to eleven Barrills of Sider four pound, eight shillings 4 8 
to one Hundred and Twenty Eight pound and Half 

pound of Pork 
to Twelve Pound and one half of Beef 
to Eighty Seven Pounds of Cheese 
to white and Brown Bread 
to mugs Broack 

"0 monstrous! but one half-pennyworth of bread to this 
intolerable deal of sack !" 

The sacred edifice thus erected by the united efforts of 
the people was held in high reverence and regard, which 
find expression in the hymn written by Ralph Waldo Em- 
erson on the anniversary of one of these old structures : 

We love the venerable house 

Our fathers built to God; 
In heaven are kept their grateful vows, 

Their dust endears the sod. 

Here holy thoughts a light have shed 

From many a radiant face, 
And prayers of tender hope have spread 

A perfume through the place. 

And anxious hearts have pondered here 

The mystery of life, 
And prayed the Eternal Spirit clear 

Their doubts and end their strife. 

From humble tenements around 

Came up the pensive train, 
And in the church a blessing found, 

Which tilled their homes again. 



THE PURITAN SEBMON. 275 

The Congregation which assembled in this house of 
worship comprised the entire population of the town. Each 
town was substantially a territorial parish ; the town was 
the religious congregation. The policy of the Puritans was 
the founding of a State to consist of a united body of be- 
lievers ; citizenship itself was co-extensive with church- 
membership. The church was established by law, the min- 
ister was elected by the people, who annually made grants 
for his support. During Queen Elizabeth's reign a law 
had been passed that compelled everybody in England to 
attend church. James the First re-enacted the law. The 
Puritans of England were just as strenuous as the King 
and the Archbishop that everybody must go to meeting on 
Sunday. The Puritans who settled in Massachusetts and 
Connecticut re-enacted the law, and Roger Williams was 
the first man who disputed their right to do so. "It is con- 
trary to the liberty of conscience," said he. "But" re- 
plied the magistrates, "it is^the duty of the officers to guard 
the people from error and heresy." "Conscience," replied 
Williams, "belongs to the individual ; it is not public prop- 
erty. The civil officer has nothing to do with it." Roger 
Williams was right, but he had to flee to Narragansett all 
the same, and the magistrates went on compeUing every- 
body to go to meeting. People who staid away were hunted 
up by the tithing-men ; for one needless absence they were 
fined ; for such absence persisted in four weeks, they were 
set in the stocks or lodged in a wooden cage. It was some- 
times a question whether dumb animals should attend ser- 



276 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

vice. In the early records of North Yarmouth an article 
in the warrant for the annual town meeting reads thus : 
"To see if dogs shall go to meeting." 

Every man was not only compelled to go to meeting, 
but had his own particular seat allotted to him, according 
to "authority, age, wealth, or house-lots." The "seating 
committee" had a delicate work to perform. Great dis- 
tinctions prevailed in society, and pride, envy and jealousy 
were as active passions in those days as they are now. The 
business of distributing the pews was an event of great 
interest in every village. It gave rise to many heart-burn- 
ings, quarrels and complaints, but it was none the less en- 
forced and scrupulously carried out. A person was fined 
if he occupied a seat assigned to another. 

And now the holy Sabbath has dawned ; the. drum-beat 
has reverberated over the hills and through the valleys of 
the scattered hamlet, and the people are setting out on 
their journey to the house of God. With many it is no 
slight expedition. They have miles of rough roads or for- 
est paths to traverse ; they have rivers to cross and hills 
to climb ; and they are encumbered with the impedimenta 
of the expedition. The good man must take his musket, 
for savages are lurking near the village ; if it be winter the 
good wife must provide a bag to be drawn over her hus- 
band's feet to defend him from the cold while sitting through 
the long sermon ; she must put a heated stone in her muff 
or take a foot-stove in her hand — and then there is the din- 
ner to be taken along. 



THE PURITAN SERMON. 277 

Now they gather on their way ; some on foot, some on 
horseback, with their wives on pillions behind them ; the 
old women and children perhaps bringing up the rear in 
ox-carts or ox-sleds. The young people, walking many 
miles, with a thrifty regard to appearances, stop and change 
their shoes and stockings before entering the meeting-house. 

At the door stands the armed sentinel. Entering they 
take their allotted places ; the Deacons in their seats in 
front of the pulpit ; all the married men and women, the 
elderly people, the civil and military dignitaries in the 
seats and pews below, according to rule ; the unmarried of 
both sexes in the galleries, with a high paling between them; 
the boys under sixteen on the pulpit and gallery stairs ; 
the younger children on little benches in the aisle, by the 
side of the pews, into which they often creep to huddle 
around the mother's footstool ; those too young to sit alone, 
in little cages next to their mothers ; while the negroes, 
slaves or free, are perched in the "swallows'-nests" in the 
tower high above the galleries. One sits apart, prominent 
before the assembly. It is some wretched male or female 
offender, with a scarlet letter, "A." or "D.," on the breast, 
to denote the crime of which he or she has been adjudged 
guilty. There is a rustle at the door ; all heads are turned, 
and in walk two constables leading a culprit. He wears a 
white paper cap on which his sin is written, and he is placed 
conspicuously on the stool of repentance. At last the min- 
ister enters in his gown, with stately tread, and all rise to 
do him reverence. 



278 FBATERNITY PAPERS. 

The congregation now settles itself down to a regular 
religious seige, expected to last from three to five hours. 
It is the duty of the sexton to go up, hour by hour, and 
turn the sand-glass over. Perhaps a chapter of the Bible 
is read and expounded at length, though in many churches 
the reading of the Scriptures is not allowed. The deacon 
now gives out a psalm, line by line, to the congregation, 
•who sing it as it is doled out to them. The sermon follows, 
and if man or boy yields to its somniferous influence he is 
relentlessly rapped over the head with the long rod of the 
ti thing-man, while delinquents of the fair sex have their 
faces brushed with the hare's tail appended to the other 
end of the rod. The wakeful portion of the congregation 
take notes of the sermon for future discussion. 

At last the long discourse is ended, and now comes the 
noon intermission, affording the one gleam of enjoyment 
which relieves the grimness of the Sabbath services. The 
congregation repairs to the Sabba'-Day houses ; if the 
season is winter, everybody warms up, luncheon is eaten, 
and the sermon is discussed with the utmost freedom of 
remark. This is the great occasion of the week. The 
widely separated families are brought together, and all 
the news and gossip of the neighborhood are exchanged. 
It is the one opportunity for social intercourse, and for that 
acquaintance among the young, which is to ripen into 
closer union. Courting goes on even in Puritan times, and 
sly glances are cast in spite of high division walls, and the 
long rod of the ti thing-man. 



THE PURITAN SERMON. 279 

The afternoon service is chiefly devoted to the business 
of the church. Children are baptized bj the pastor; the 
deacon makes an exhortation to the people to bring in 
contributions, in answer to which the whole congregation 
rises, and proceeding to the deacon's seat, each deposits 
his offering in a wooden box, a miscellaneous collection of 
goods and chattels, besides money. Now new members 
are admitted to the church, and cases of church discipline 
are tried. Many of these proceedings are exciting and 
amusing, and nobody falls asleep now. Perhaps some of- 
fender, dressed in fantastic style, is made to stand up and 
confess his crime. At last comes the benediction, the min- 
ister passes out first, bowing to the people on both sides of 
the aisle, who sit in silence until he and his family are gone. 
It is now sifnset perhaps ; the Sabbath is ended, and the 
world returns to its work-a-day aspect. 

The Sunday of the Puritans furnished them with their 
sole mental food of the week. Their worship was a purely 
spiritual one. They had emancipated themselves from a 
crowd of observances. They invoked no saints ; they raised 
no altar ; they adored no crucifix ; they kissed no book ; 
they asked no absolution. Religion was with them the great 
bond between man and his Maker, and they endured no in- 
tervention. The sermon was with them the source of ideas, 
the exposition of doctrine, the theme of discussion. 

We may say of it, first, that it was weighty, and it was 
long. The preacher had a great message to deliver, and 
he took his time about it. He possessed the gift of con- 



280 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

tinuance in large degree. The prayers which were but 
another form of the sermon, were long too. They were 
from fifty to one hundred minutes in length, and many of 
the sermons make from a hundred to a hundred and fifty 
printed pages. Of the annual Fast of 1749 Parson Smith 
of Falmouth, writes in his journal : *'I had uncommon as- 
sistance, especially in the first prayer ; I was about an hour, 
and I was an hour and a half in sermon." One would think 
it was the congregation who needed assistance under such 
a trial, especially while fasting. But if any one was impa- 
tient and disturbed the services he was made to stand two 
hours on a block four feet high, with the inscription, *'A 
wanton Gospeller." But the appetite for the long sermon 
and the prayer grew with what it fed upon. "Mr. Torrey 
stood up and prayed nearly two hours," writes a Harvard 
student in the seventeenth century ; "but time obliged him 
to close, to our regret ; and we could gladly have heard 
him an hour longer." Think of a Harvard student in our 
day enjoying two hours of prayer, and like Oliver Twist, 
asking for more ! The eminent Thomas Hooker once when 
he was ill, at first proceeded in his discourse for fifteen min- 
utes, then stopped and rested half an hour, then resumed 
and preached for two hours ! This was when he was ill ; 
to what lengths might he not have gone if he had been well ! 
Nathaniel Ward, in his whimsical satire, "The Simple 
Cobbler of Agawam," makes this propensity of himself and 
his brethren, the theme of a confession: "We have a 
strong weakness in New England that when we are speak- 



THE PURITAN SERMON. 281 

ing we know not how to conclude. We make many ends 
before we make an end." 

But the people as well as the clergy were fond of subtle 
metaphysical distinctions, of system, minuteness, and com- 
pleteness of treatment. If the Sabbath was too short, the 
preacher was at liberty to resume and continue the topic, 
week by week, and month by month, in orderly sequence. 
Thus the sermon was full of minute and multitudinous di- 
visions and subdivisions ; its anatomy exposed on the out- 
side of it ; a formal announcement of doctrine, proofs, se- 
quences, applications and showers of quotation from Scrip- 
ture. 

The sermon was as multifarious in its themes, as it was 
minute in its subdivisions. It swept the entire circuit of 
topics, sacred and secular, on which men employed their 
thoughts in those days — divinity, ethics, casuistry, church 
government, law, English and American politics, history, 
prophecy, demonology, crime, poverty, ignorance, dancing, 
the Indian question, earthquakes, comets, winds, conflagra- 
tions, drunkenness, and the small pox, — everything in 
heaven and on earth, save gushes of sentiment, and torrents 
of eloquent sound. The people would not tolerate those. 
They went to meeting, not for diversion or mental repose, 
but with their minds aroused for strenuous and robust work, 
and they got plenty of it. 

The theology of the sermon inculcated a gloomy creed. 
In its practical application to life it was probably the most 
artificial and the most oppressive creed that has ever exer- 



282 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

cised a lasting influence upon a civilized christian commu- 
nity. Man, through the depravity of Adam, having fallen 
into sin thousands of ages before he was born, finds on 
arriving to take possession of the existence thus blighted 
for him in advance, that his fall is an exceedingly complete 
one — dragging down every faculty and atom of his nature. 
The dogma of total depravity is presented to us in these 
sprightly colors, by one of these old divines : "Every natu- 
ral man and woman is born full of all sin, as full as a toad 
is of poison, as full as ever his skin can hold ; mind, will, 
eyes, mouth, every limb of his body, and every piece of his 
soul, is full of sin ; their hearts are bundles of sin." "Thy 
mind is a nest of all the foul opinions, heresies, that were 
ever invented by any man ; thy heart is a foul sink of all 
atheism, sodomy, blasphemy, murder, witchcraft ; so that if 
thou hast any good thing in thee, it is but as a drop of rose 
water in a bowl of poison. It is true thou feelest not all 
these things stirring in thee at one time — but they are in 
thee like a nest of snakes in an old hedge." And all this 
because of the personal misconduct of Adam. 

There was but one escape from this dire condition. That 
was in the atonement of Jesus Christ. But you must be 
one of the elect to receive the benefit of that atoning grace. 
If you are not one of the elect, "God shall set himself like 
a consuming infinite fire against thee, and tread thee under 
His feet, who hast by sin trod Him and His glory under foot 
all thy life. Think not this cruelty : it is justice. What 
cares God for a vile wretch, whom nothing can make good, 



THE PURITAN SERMON. 283 

while it lives." As an instrument of this justice the devil 
was everywhere present. "No place that I know of," says 
one of the Boston preachers, ''has got such a spell upon it 
as will always keep the devil out. He is here even in 
the meeting-house." Judging from the doctrine preached, 
one is tempted to think that he not unfrequently got into 
the pulpit. Hell, like the devil, was a terrible reality. Jon- 
athan Edwards, the great theologian of New England, pic- 
tures it in these awful words : 

''The world will probably be converted into a great lake 
or liquid globe of fire, in which the wicked will be over- 
whelmed, which shall always be in tempest, in which they 
shall be tossed to and fro, having no rest day or night, vast 
waves or billows of fire continually rolling over their heads, 
of which they shall ever be full of a quick sense, within and 
without ; their heads, their eyes, their tongues, their hands, 
their feet, their loins and their vitals shall be forever full 
of a glowing, melting fire, enough to melt the very rocks 
and elements. Also they shall be full of the most quick 
and lively sense to feel the torments, not for ten millions 
of ages, but for ever and ever, without any end at all." 

Dr. Phelps says: "The Puritans were anthracite on 
fire." It must be admitted that they made an uncom- 
monly hot one. The people feared, yet were fascinated 
by it. "The Day of Doom," that terrific doggerel of the 
Rev. Michael Wigglesworth, embodying the common belief 
in its coarse, realistic pictures of the Day of Judgment, 
passed through six editions, Avas twice reprinted in Eng- 



284 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

land, and was the popular book of the day. Yet no more 
cruel and detestable picture was ever drawn under the 
pretence of exalting the justice of the Almighty. The 
character attributed to the Supreme Being is perhaps as 
outrageous and execrable as a good man ever ascribed to 
the object of his adoration. The Judge of all the earth, 
the fountain of justice and mercy, is represented as saying 
to the poor little babes brought before him on the day of 
doom — those 

"Who died in infancy, 
And never had or good or bad, 
Effected personally: 

"You sinners are ; and such a share 

As sinners, may expect ; 
Such you shall have, for I do save 

None biit mine ovrn elect. 
Yet to compare your sin with their 

"Who lived a longer time, 
I do confess yours is much less, 

Though every sin's a crime. 
A crime it is ; therefore in bliss 

You may not hope to dwell ; 
But unto you I shall allow 

The easiest room in hell." 

These be awful doctrines ; no superstition more gross 
ever sheltered itself under the garb of Christian belief. 
But the Puritan sermon had other elements than these. 
It was earnest, it was robust, it represented an enormous 
amount of subtle, sustained and sturdy brain power. It 
was grave, dry, abstruse, dreadful ; in style often uncouth 
and ponderous, yet nevertheless it is a monument of vast 
learning, and of a stupendous intellectual energy both in the 



THE PURITAN SERMON. 285 

men "who produced it and in the men who hstened to it. 
It is a thing of the past, but in its time it did its work in 
moving the minds of men. It laid hold on great ideas, 
and in many things was in advance of its age. 

One peculiarity of the Puritan sermon was the manner 
of its delivery. It was written, and owing to the scarcity 
of paper it was so closely written, that the use of a mag- 
nifying glass to decipher it when read, was often necessary. 
Thus closely confined to the manuscript, there was little 
room for gesture, or energy of delivery, on the part of the 
preacher. These old manuscript sermons are literary curi- 
osities from the very closeness of their writing, their won- 
derful economy in the use of paper. They were all written 
on small note paper, about four by six inches, and one in 
my possession, written by the Rev. Mr. Chad wick of Scar- 
boro, contains three hundred and eighty-seven words on a 
page, every pin's point of the paper being covered from the 
top of the first page to the bottom of the last. But this is 
greatly exceeded by another sermon, preached at Wells in 
1724, by the Rev. Samuel Jefferds, which on a page of about 
the same size contains six hundred and eighty-four words. 
One of these old sermons, an hour long, was written on 
four pages of manuscript ! How laborious must have been 
their delivery ! Many of them are written in a sort of short- 
hand, abbreviations and signs standing for words. This ena- 
bled them to get many words upon a page, but made them 
utterly unintelHgible to the uninitiated. The handwriting 
of many of them is almost microscopic. One venerable 



286 FBATERNITY PAPERS. 

relic, nearly two hundred years old, written in 1691 by 
the Rev. Thoraas Weld, looks like a collection of hiero- 
glyphics, and is almost unreadable. 

These be the "Godly and painful sermons" to which our 
fathers listened. 

Their influence was great, for evil and for good. The 
creed they expounded darkened many lives. The fallen 
nature of man through sin, the enmity of God toward the 
human beings he had created, the responsibility of man 
and his helplessness to free himself from the curse de- 
nounced upon him, the damnation of infants, the eternal 
duration of the torments of hell, to which the vast major- 
ity of mankind were doomed, weighed with unrelieved 
gloom upon the soul. There was no delivery from it. The 
strong were subdued, the weak were crushed by it. Inno- 
cent children" were thrown into agonies of fear. Life 
and death were alike made awful. It did not console ; it 
did not cheer. It alarmed ; it quenched gladness ; it de- 
stroyed confidence, it all but destroyed hope ; it invigo- 
rated, but with the invigoration of fear. It repelled, and, 
in the end, it weakened faith. If, as has been said, Uni- 
tarianism is a step toward unbelief, then the Puritan ser- 
mon brought about unbelief by over-insisting on belief and 
the awful penalties to be inflicted upon the unbeliever. 
The human mind could not be kept up to that strain. It 
revolted, it swung away, slowly but surely towards the 
other extreme, until now it has come about that in many 
of the old towns of Massachusetts the old church, the first 



THE PURITAN SERMON. 287 

church, the Puritan church that was, is the Unitarian 
church of to-daj, and the city which was the very center 
of Puritanism, has become the headquarters of what are 
known as the Hberal denominations. 

On the other hand, oppressive as was the creed of the 
Puritan sermon, it nurtured precious virtues. From the 
rock itself sprang living waters. The creed was the pro- 
duction of men of independent souls, of resolved purpose, 
of moral integrity. It bred men of like temper. It was 
the creed of political independence and of Republican insti- 
tutions. The doctrine of the fall of man brought all men 
on a level. King, priest, the noble, the rich, were sinners 
in the eyes of the Lord no less than the poor and the hum- 
ble. "God is no respecter of persons," was its first lesson. 

It held the people to a high, an almost unattainable 
standard of morality. Many fell short, but the general 
result was better than elsewhere. There were, of course, 
outbreaks against so severe a system, even in the earliest 
times, and when the stringency diminished there was a 
general lowering of the standard, but the public and pri- 
vate morals yet continued better than in most communities, 
and so ingrained had become the habits of virtue, that 
there was no violent reaction, no outburst of vice, when the 
old iron system gave way. Roger Williams, when he 
opened a refuge for men of all opinions in Rhode Island, 
found that they were not the material with which to estab- 
lish a strong and well-ordered government. His was but a 
turbulent community, and the general progress was slower 



288 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

there than in the older New England colonies ; while in 
Maine, where no church was founded, where no creed was 
set up, where no stable government was instituted, disorder 
reigned, morals were at a low standard, education was ut- 
terly neglected, until at last the better class of settlers 
were compelled to call upon Massachusetts to take the land 
under her protecting care, and from the day that she as- 
sumed control date our public schools, our churches, and 
our advance in general prosperity. 

Again, the Puritan creed, irrational as it was, addressed 
the reason no less than the conscience. It required dis- 
cussion and discrimination. The note-books of the congre- 
gation were the commentary on the sermon. Here was 
freedom of opinion unheard of in the older churches ; the 
Roman Catholic church required unquestioning submission ; 
its dogmas were not to be discussed, but to be accepted as 
infallible ; the church of England was scarcely less author- 
itative in its utterances : under the rule of Laud no dispu- 
tation was possible. The Bible, the Word of God, was the 
source of the Puritan creed, but the reason must be ap- 
pealed to for the right interpretation of that Word. Many 
false premises were taken for granted, many false con- 
clusions drawn from them. But the argument was an ex- 
ercise of the reasoning faculty. There was endless con- 
troversy, and by it wits were sharpened for use in other 
debates. Thought slowly won its freedom, and freedom 
led to truth. 

It is true that in freeing the human mind from the old 



THE PURITAN SERMON. 289 

shackles the Puritans sought to limit it in a new fashion. 
But the effort was vain. The liberated intelligence broke 
the bonds of Calvin as it had those of Rome ; and the 
spirit of inquiry proved as fatal to the peculiar political 
and social system of the Puritans, as it had to the tyranny 
of the Papish hierarchy. On the one side the Puritan was 
the dark, unrelenting, religious enthusiast, fierce of spirit 
and gloomy in creed ; on the other, he was the champion 
of education, and rendered unequalled services to the en- 
lightenment of the human race. 



AFTER-THOUGHTS 



OR THE GOSPEL OF THE DISAGREEABLE. 



I have given this paper the title of "After- thoughts," for 
the reason that its theme was suggested to me by the views 
expressed by several members of this Club. We all carry 
away from these discussions something of the thoughts of 
others, which enters into and confirms, or modifies, our 
own views of life and its meanings. I notice that those 
among us who are most silent after the reading, find tongue 
at the table, and that the discussion goes on in the expres- 
sion of after-thoughts which are not less worthy of atten- 
tion than those which spring up in the heat of debate. If 
I bring you but a cold dish, a rehash of viands that have 
already been served, consider, I pray you, the abundance 
of the feast, and that some of us, from lack of other food 
to offer, must perforce avail ourselves of that which is left. 

This Club is an educating force. Our discussions bring 
out all that is in us, and while they have a broadening 
and liberalizing effect, teaching respect for the opinions of 
others, sometimes suggesting doubts of our own, they none 
the less sharply define the individuality of each member. 



AFTER-THOUGHTS. 291 

We get to know, here, not only ourselves, but each other. 
And the charm of it all is, that the more freely each ex- 
presses himself, the more clearly all discern that good 
which the poet has taught us exists in everything. Man is 
a many sided being, and on all sides is worthy of consider- 
ation. Getting to know each other well, we learn that a 
very good fellow may, in belief, differ widely from our- 
selves, and are taught that the soul of goodness abides not 
in creeds or dogmas, but in character and purpose. We 
thus attain to that wide charity which vaunteth not itself 
and — which covers a multitude of sins. 

"In faith and hope the world will disagree, 
But all mankind's concern is charitJ^" 

It is this spirit that I invoke in the consideration of the 
thoughts I have to oifer. I have given to them the sub- 
title of "The Gospel of the Disagreeable," because that 
phrase was suggested to me by a remark of our President. 
He has spoken of "A Gospel of the Agreeable" of which 
we should do well to beware. It has occurred to me that 
the existence of the agreeable supposes the existence of 
the disagreeable, and that if there is a gospel of the one,, 
there may be of the other. It has sometimes seemed to 
me that the apostles of the Disagreeable are to be found 
among ourselves. This, of course, is said in no injurious 
sense, but simply as expressive of the impressions made 
upon my own mind by views advanced. 

"If it is comfort you want," says our President, "go for 
something pleasant; if truth, that's another matter." Is 



292 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

there then no truth in the agreeable, and must we suspect 
that which is pleasant of being false and deceptive ? The 
answer to be given to this inquiry depends on the meaning 
we attach to the terms employed. We have been taught 
here the importance of definitions, and I hasten, like a good 
general, who carefully selects his position before engaging 
in the battle, to define what I understand by the Agreea- 
ble, and the Disagreeable. 

By the Agreeable I understand that which is most con- 
formable to man's highest aspirations, widest beliefs, and 
deepest convictions ; that which gives scope for faith and 
hope, and makes life worth living. This includes not 
merely that which is pleasant, but much which in its out- 
ward aspect is not pleasant, but which proves agreeable in 
the end. 

By the Disagreeable I understand not merely that which 
is not conformable to our hopes and aspirations, but which 
darkens life, represses aspiration, extinguishes hope, and 
leaves us mere atoms of the universe, the sport of chance, 
with an inexplicable origin and a purposeless existence. 

In disparaging the Gospel of the agreeable our Presi- 
dent cites the apparent evil of old age. The contempla- 
tion of the decay of our powers he paints as worse than 
death. But this is an evil of anticipation rather than of 
reality. To accept it darkens life. It is more agreeable 
to believe, what I think is true, that all periods of life, not 
excepting old age, have their pleasures and compensations, 
which we do not enter into until we reach those stages of 



AFTER-THOUGETS. 293 

our existence. The dark view of old age is that of youth 
and early manhood. If, at mid-day, some being new to 
this existence, and charmed with all he saw of earth, were 
told that in a few hours the sun would withdraw its light, 
that darkness would shut down upon this bright scene, and 
that all he saw would be blotted out, with what horror 
would he shrink from the coming catastrophe. But as he 
saw the sun gradually declining towards the horizon, as he 
gazed upon the glories of the sunset sky, as he beheld the 
day imperceptibly gliding through twilight into night, the 
very absence of the sun revealing a new world in the heav- 
enly host, how would his fears give way to wonder and de- 
light, and how gladly would he accept the repose which the 
hours of darkness bring. 

So it is with life. To one in the full exercise of all the 
powers of manhood, the contemplation of their decay may 
seem abhorrent. But to him who has rounded up a well- 
spent life, old age brings no calamity. He does not mourn 
over the decay of his powers, because he has grown weary 
of their exercise. He does not regret the loss of those 
objects of ambition which incite younger men to exertion, 
because he has tasted all the pleasure they have to give. 
He has other objects of contemplation. He dwells in ret- 
rospection, but looks before as well as after. Other worlds 
widen on his view, and as this life glides away he accepts 
the repose which its last hours bring. 

Col. Waring, writing of a visit to William and Mary 
Hewitt, says : ''One gets from an hour passed with them 



294 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

an insight into the happy possibilities of ripe old age, and 
looks forward with a fresh interest to the time when one's 
own long down hill of life shall bring good and sweet re- 
ward for the work of the busier years." We have all seen 
such pictures of happy old age. We have men among us 
who will say that in the long twilight of life they have found 
their happiest hours. 

It is true there is another picture of old age which is 
indeed "dark and unlovely." I have seen those who shrunk 
from its approach, who struggled against its conditions, who 
refused to accept its compensations, and whose existence 
went out in darkness. But in all these instances this was 
but the consummation of an ill-spent life, which made the 
worst use of the blessings of every period of existence, 
and did not fulfill the purposes for which life is given. 

It is this foreboding, this anticipation of conditions upon 
which we have not entered, that gives us dark views of hfe. 
We believe at once in evil ; we only believe in good upon 
reflection. It is agreeable to think that there is more good 
than evil in the world, more joy than sorrow, more pleas- 
ure than pain. And is it not so? Let us look into our 
lives and strike the balance between good and evil. We 
may have had misfortunes, our ambitions may have Been 
disappointed, illness may have befallen us, dear ones may 
have departed. I say nothing of the compensations which 
these sorrows and disappointments often bring, I ask only, 
have they overbalanced the good in our lives, the long years 
of health, the pleasures of busy and successful pursuits, the 



AFTER-THOUGHTS. 295 

companionship of friends, the enjoyment of all in this 
beautiful world that ministers to the senses, the hopes and 
aspirations which have shed a steady light upon our way? 

Hours of darkness fall upon the earth, but it is merci- 
fully appointed that we pass them in the oblivion of sleep ; 
we live only in the hours of sunlight. There is a great 
pleasure in conscious being. The heart of the child leaps 
with a joy it cannot explain. It is the exuberance of life, 
pure and simple. The spirits of the young rise high with 
fond anticipations of the future. Mature manhood, sobered 
but not saddened, seeing more clearly that which is attain- 
able, finds happiness in absorbing pursuits; old age seeks 
repose in abandoning them when they have yielded all they 
have to offer. This is the lesson of life as I read it ; this 
is the teaching of religion as I understand it, nor do I be- 
lieve that science tells a difierent tale. I accept the phi- 
losophy of Emerson who says, "The gracious lesson taught 
by science to this century is, that the history of nature, 
from first to last is incessant advance from less to more, 
from rude to finer organization, the globe of matter thus, 
conspiring with the principle of undying hope in man." 

If then, happiness is the rule of this life, shall we de- 
spair of that which is to come ? But says our friend X. to 
whose thoughtful essays we all listen with the conviction 
that they are the utterance of an earnest and sincere spirit, 
seeking for the truth, "mankind desire rest, they get tired, 
they want a long sleep. Is it rest to be driven into another 
existence of the same sort ? How can we be benefitted by 



296 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

such a change ? We stand a chance of being even worse 
off than we are here. As to this Hfe we must make the 
best of it." 

That is what we say when a misfortune befalls us — we 
must make the best of it. Is life then a misfortune ? It 
is disagreeable to think so. Is it, nevertheless, true ? The 
human race has practically decided otherwise. It has de- 
termined to live on, and it finds a joy in living. It clings 
to life not merely from fear of that which is to come, but 
for the enjoyment of that which is. If a man commits 
suicide it is taken as presumptive proof that he is insane. 
Men find the joy of living not merely in the pursuit of 
pleasure, but in the performance of duty, in the accom- 
plishment of good, in self-sacrifice, in the affectionate rela- 
tions of life, in the contemplation of all that is noblest and 
highest in human character. It is indeed true that we 
should make the best of this life, but not in the sense that 
we must endure it as a misfortune. We should make the 
best of its opportunities, its high purposes, its great aims, 
but can we do this without the incentive which the hope of 
a future and a better life affords ? 

"Let the future take care of itself," says our friend, and 
then proceeds to argue it out of existence. "Being only 
a passing combination of matter and motion," he says, 
"man may be said to be a fortuitous combination of atoms 
coming together and dissolving without end or purpose." 
What incentive has such a fortuitous being to make the 
best of anything — a mote dancing in the sunbeam, an un- 



AFTER-THOUGHTS. 29T 

considered agglomeration of atoms in the universe of mat- 
ter. , This is the consummation of the gospel of the Disa- 
greeable. Must we accept it ? How does oar friend prove 
it ? By a syllogism, in which, as I humbly conceive, he 
jumps at his premises. "If a great First Cause existed 
before the universe, it must have existed in space and time. 
So space and time could not have been created. Space 
could never have been empty ; therefore some form of mat- 
ter must always have existed to fill it. Hence matter was 
never created and can never be destroyed." 

Here the great First Cause is limited by time and space, 
which are but conditions of human existence. Are we to 
conceive of nothing beyond human conditions ? If there 
was a great First Cause He must have transcended time 
and space. He could not be limited by them. But with 
our friend matter is all in all, and to give it pre-eminence 
he insists that space must always have been filled with it. 
This, as it seems to me, is a mere assumption. Why could 
space never have been empty ? Our first conception of it 
is room, expansion, freedom to wander in. In the abstract 
it is mere extension, distance between objects. Space is 
that which may contain, but it does not follow that it always 
contains. But, again, if space must be filled, why must it 
be filled with matter ? Why is it not conceivable that it 
may have been filled in the first instance with that divine 
spirit which comprehends all things ? Is not the eternity of 
matter as unthinkable, to say the least, as the eternity of 
spirit ? But spirit is eliminated from our friend's philoso- 



298 FRATERNITY PAPEES. 

phj. "The four great pillars of the universe," he tells us, 
"are time, space, matter and motion." And "motion is 
but the manifestation of force, which is itself an inherent 
property of matter." Why then differentiate motion from 
matter ? Why employ four terms when three are sufficient ? 
It might be awk^vard to set the universe up on three legs, 
but is it safe to split up one to make two ? With such a 
support is not the whole structure in danger of becoming 
rickety ? Does not our friend employ this fourth term be- 
cause he is conscious that to meet the facts of the universe 
something more is necessary than time, space and matter ? 
Is it not obvious that there is a spirit which takes cogni- 
zance of matter, while matter cannot take cognizance of 
the spirit ? And is this not an ineradicable distinction be- 
tween mind and matter ? Can that be inherent in matter of 
which it has no knowledge ? Reason as he may our friend 
is forced to go outside of matter to reach his fourth term. 
Call it what he may, force or motion, is not that fourth 
term spirit, and is not that spirit, God, the Supreme Ruler 
of all things ? And if God rules all thiugs, can man be "a 
fortuitous combination of atoms, coming together and dis- 
solving without end or purpose." Our friend admits that 
spirit may survive the body. It cannot then be inherent 
in it ; for that which is inherent is inseparable. But he 
urges that it cannot be proved that the spirit survives the 
body. Can he prove that it does not ? If not, shall we 
not have the benefit of the doubt ? 

Our brother Y. goes a step beyond our friend X. He 



AFTER-THOUGHTS. 299 

cannot see that man exists at all after death. He does not 
know what soul means. The body is all of which he can 
get any conception. He cannot conceive of existence with- 
out a sensory apparatus. 

But is not this confounding the greater with the less, the 
sense with its organ ? The sensorium is defined as the seat 
of sense and perception, not as sense and perception them- 
setves. You look upon the dead body of a departed friend. 
The organs of sense are all there. If they are all in all, 
why do they not continue to act ? Something has departed. 
What was that something and whither has it gone ? I 
believe with Joseph Cook, "that the accredited scientific 
inculcation of the most advanced minds, to-day, is that while 
what is called germinal matter may be the physical basis of 
life, it is not all, and so far as science can perceive cannot 
ever be placed by philosophy in the position of the phys- 
ical basis of thought, choice and emotion." This amounts 
to an admission "that the soul which thinks and chooses, 
and feels, is not matter ; that as life existed before organi- 
zation, it may exist after ; that it is no more wonderful that 
the organic principle which has made this body should make 
another than that it already has made our present wardrobe 
of flesh.; and, indeed, that it is less wonderful that we 
should live again than that we should live at all." 

Professor Tyndall, in his latest word in the Fortnightly 
Review, says, "physical considerations do not lead to the 
final explanation of all that we feel and know. We meet 
a problem which transcends any conceivable expansion of 



300 FBATEENITY PAPERS. 

the powers which we now possess. We may think over 
the subject again and again, but it eludes all intellectual 
presentation. Having thus exhausted physics and reached 
its very rim, a mighty mystery still looms before us. * * * 
Eeligious feeling is as much a verity as any other part of 
human consciousness ; and against it on its subjective side, 
the waves of science beat in vain." 

It is from this very rim of exhausted physics, thus indi- 
cated by Prof. Tyndall, that faith and hope take flight and 
soar to other worlds. Our friend says "the man who has 
no other reason than hope for immortality, is very weak, or 
very dishonest." Ah, well, humanity is very weak in the 
presence of this mighty mystery which looms before us. 
It has claims and yearnings which physical science cannot 
satisfy. It needs other support. It finds it in that relig- 
ious feeling which Professor Tyndall tells us is "as much a 
verity as any other part of human consciousness," as much 
a verity as that sensory apparatus beyond which our friend 
cannot go. Faith and hope are in the world. They have 
always been with mankind. They have strengthened the 
weak, consoled the sorrowing, supported the afflicted, given 
peace and comfort to millions of fainting hearts. They are 
not blind leaders of the blind. Hope is not a mere desire, 
it has reasonable expectations. It is grounded on substan- 
tial evidence. "Faith," as St. Paul tells us, "is the sub- 
stance of things hoped for,. the evidence of things not 
seen." It evermore waits upon authority. It is belief 
founded upon evidence, belief in every direction, towards 



AFTER-THOUGHTS. 301 

the sense, the understanding, the conscience, the reason 
and revelation. How largely, in this world, we walk by 
faith, and not by sight. Shall faith and hope be ruled out ? 
What a light would go out with them if this were possible. 
What darkness would settle down upon mankind. 

"Thy God hath said, "Tis good for thee, 
To walk by faith, and not by sight.' 

Take it on trust a little while; 
Soon Shalt thou read the mystery riglit 

In the full sunshine of His smile." 

Our friend, in his pursuit of the Disagreeable, (if he will 
pardon the expression) raises doubt about the possibility of 
happiness in a future state. ''What shall we do with eter- 
nity on our hands ? As man is constituted occupation is 
essential to his happiness. Old men who give up work go 
to pieces. What can an undertaker or a doctor do in a 
future life ?" 

Now it must be admitted that an eternity of psalm-sing- 
ing would not be agreeable, — particularly to the members 
of this Club. But are we shut up to that, or the alterna- 
tive of an eternity of idleness ? Our friend believes in 
the senses, and Professor Pierce tells us that in the inves- 
tigation of the phenomena of the universe there is scope 
for forty new spiritual senses. Can we not conceive of 
infinite pleasure in the pursuit of that knowledge which is 
beyond the limits of our conditions here ? We know that 
with the elevation of mankind from their lowest condition 
have come new sources of pleasure in the discovery of new 
fields of knowledge to explore. Reasoning from analogy 
may we not conclude that with his transition to another 



302 FRATEENITT PAPERS. 

stage of existence there will be opened to him illimitable 
sources of progress and improvement ? 

It is undoubtedly true that man's enjoyment of a future 
state of existence will depend largely upon the manner in 
which he employs his time here. He who allows himself 
to become absorbed in the exercise of one employment, 
lays up no resources for old age, when the further pursuit 
of that employment becomes impossible. The wise man 
intersperses his labors with moments of golden leisure, in 
which he broadens his vision and rescues his faculties from 
being narrowed down to one accustomed pursuit. He 
comes to this Club, for example, and stores up wisdom for 
his declining years. So with our preparation for heaven ; 
we must give some thought to those things which are to 
come if we would be in a condition to enjoy them. Our 
friend says they belong to the unknowable, and it is not 
worth while to worry about them. But he may find it 
worth his while to prepare for them. The undertaker must 
raise his thoughts above the body which he places in the 
ground. The physician must look beyond the senses. 

In pursuing this discussion I find myself very much in 
the position of the Irishman, who, when asked what he was 
doing with his shillalah in a faction fight, replied that he 
was "just sloshing around." In pursuit therefore of an- 
other head to hit I turn to our friend Z, who presents an 
ample front, and has blows to give as well as to take. 

It is the instinct of mankind to reach up to a great 
Supreme Being for help, as a child reaches up to his par- 



AFTER-THOUGBTS. 303 

ent. The idea of the fatherhood of God is agreeable to 
man's nature. He may be ignorant and rebellious, but 
his ignorance and rebeUion never break that first relation- 
ship. He returns to it in his hour of need, he clings to it in 
the final moments of existence. Is this idea to be discarded 
because it is agreeable ? We are not compelled by what we 
know to disbelieve it. The instinct goes for something. 
But with our friend it goes for nothing. He denies the 
existence of God, or at least of a personal God. He would 
shoulder. Him out of His own universe. I never heard 
him speak disrespectfully of the Devil. There are some 
reasons for thinking that he believes in him. He believes 
in spirits, and he must admit that there are evil spirits. 
Good spirits, too — but not the great and Supreme Good. 
Spirits ? — yes — but not the great Source of Spirit I Fu- 
ture life? — certainly — but not the One eternal life! ^'It 
does not follow," says our friend, "that if there is no God 
we cannot exist forever." But can we conceive of a heaven 
without a God ? — of a world of spirits without the one Su- 
preme Spirit ? "Immortality," says our friend, "exists with- 
out reference to God." But can anything exist without 
reference to God ? There must be a first great Cause, and 
if immortality exists it must be because of an immortal 
Cause. But, we are told, that to give individuality to God 
is to limit his powers. Is not His individuality commen- 
surate with His universe ? And what limit is there to that ? 
Do you say that God is matter ? Well then, man is mat- 
ter. "Not at all," you reply, "man is a spirit." Then 



304 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

man is God. That which is spiritual must be superior ta 
that which is material. If man exists alone in the spirit 
world, he is supreme there. Our friend rejects God but 
clings to immortality, which is the attribute of God. He 
denies all the evidences of immortality, and reaches it by 
a pathway of his own, the entrance to which is hard to find. 
He seemed to be disproving a future state of existence, 
but suddenly we found him in a world of spirits of his own 
creation. 

The inability to prove that there is no God is universally 
admitted on the part of objectors. The idea of God is in 
the world. It has universally prevailed. It has persist- 
ently endured amid all the shock of contradiction and 
question, amid all the changes of philosophies and policies- 
and politics, showing its deep and ineradicable existence in 
the hearts of men. As has been well said by another, that 
idea, "however well or ill-conceived, however strongly or 
feebly held, philosophically developed implies Supreme Be- 
ing, supreme in all excellencies which reason, the lowest and 
the highest reason, can discern : Supreme existence or self- 
existence, supreme action or self-action, supreme govern- 
ment or self-government, that is, a personality Supreme." 
No people have achieved great things without faith in a per- 
sonal God. Christianity is not a dogma, nor a creed, but be- 
hef in a Being, and belief in that Being has consoled and 
strengthened mankind, and turned to right living millions 
of human beings. 

The personaUty of God has been argued from the evi- 



AFTER-THOUGHTS. 305 

dences of design in the universe. The flower of the field 
reveals a beneficent purpose. Our friend, as I understand 
him, does not deny this, but he declares that the benefi- 
cence ascribed to God exists in the nature of things. I 
submit that this is a vague expression. What is the nature 
of things ? I have heard of the pervervsity of inanimate 
objects, but never of the beneficence of things. If benefi- 
cence exists in the nature of things it must be the result of 
law working through them, and law must have a Creator. 
"Omnipresent design can proceed only from an omnipres- 
ent personal intelligence." Our friend holds that rehgion 
is a hindrance to the highest and best life. But religion of 
some sort is a necessity of man's nature. Our friend is 
himself a very religious man in spite of this belief ; more- 
over he is a missionary, propagating his faith. He cannot 
help doing so. If religion is a hindrance to the highest life 
then it is to be feared that man will never reach his best 
estate, for he will never long be without a religion. I think 
a reference to history will show that man's best and high- 
est aspirations, his noblest deeds, his purest life have found 
expression through religion. However it may have been 
overlaid and disguised by fable, ceremony and priest-craft, 
religion in its essence has been the conservator of the race. 
What else has elevated mankind to its present condition of 
humane thought and feeling ? Not the unrestrained work- 
ing of human nature, for that has tended to excess and evil. 
Not the teachings of science, for although they have done 
good work in dispelling the superstitions which clog relig- 



305 FRATEBNITY PAPERS. 

ion, they have substituted nothing for the great pillars on 
■which rest the hopes and faith of humanity. Religion has 
ever been the basis of morality and whatever has weak- 
ened religious belief has sapped the foundation of morals. 
If our friend refers to Christianity, rather than to religion 
in general, I do not stop to vindicate that behef, but I may 
remark in passing that he seems to have made the mistake 
of attributing to Christianity the superstitions, the excesses, 
and the cruelties which are due to human nature. It is 
easy to run up and down through the christian ages, point- 
ing out every rack and thumb-screw, but regardless of the 
many martyrs ; putting your finger upon the dark stains, 
but not noticing the illuminated pages of ecclesiastical his- 
tory ; complaining of the gloom of the scholastic theology, 
but blind to the growing light. But to Christianity we 
owe the doctrine of the fatherhood of God and the brother- 
hood of man, and what that has done for the elevation of 
the race history sufficiently proves. 

Our friend yearns for the attainment of Good, without 
religion. Can he ever reach it in that way ? It is certain 
that it never has thus been reached in the past. Goldwin 
Smith has discussed this question in the light of history. 
He maintains that the religions have been the basis of 
moral life, the support of righteousness, and the terror of 
■unrighteousness, and that the collapse of religious systems 
has always been followed by periods of moral debasement. 
He shows that Hellenic life was full of religion, while the 
fear of the gods was a main-stay of morality, but that 



AFTER-THOUGHTS. 307 

when it became weakened by the decadence of the gross 
mythology with which it was entangled, there was a gen- 
eral dissolution of moral ties, and Hellas lapsed into a state 
in which might made right, and public life became a mere 
struggle for existence, wherein the fittest — that is the 
strongest or the most cunning, — survived. So with Rome ; 
in its early history public and private virtue was sustained 
by reverence for the gods. When this religion fell there 
followed a wide-spread immorality. In modern times the 
decadence of rehgious belief has been fatal not only to 
morality but to liberty, since it brought in the need of a 
government of force to keep men from mutual destruction 
and rapine. Certainly there cannot be a more dishearten- 
ing picture of human depravity than was presented by the 
Roman Senate, at the very time when Caesar was denying 
a future existence. 

It has been objected to this view of history that it makes 
morality to rest not on any divine, immutable basis, but 
upon crude and transitory behefs, superstitious legends and 
perishable dogmas. The reply is that morality did not 
rest upon those mythologies and superstitions, but upon the 
fundamental beliefs in a Supreme Ruler of the universe, 
in a future state of existence, and a system of rewards and 
punishments with which these fables were associated, and 
that when these behefs were weakened by the decadence 
of the accompanying mythologies, men said if this is all of 
life let us make the most of it. In other words men lost 
the essence of religion with its form, but the essence sur- 
vives and re-appears in ever renewing forms of faith. 



308 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

I do not follow Professor Smith in all his conclusions. 
I do not attribute England's treatment of the Zulus and 
the Afghans to the prevalence of the doctrine of evolution, 
for England has never been tender of savage races when 
they have stood in her way. But I do think that what- 
ever tends to weaken faith in the great fundamental truths 
of rehgion strikes at the foundations of morality. I have 
no fear of the discoveries of science. Whatever truth is 
revealed by them will fit in with all other truth. It is the 
dogmas of science which may mislead. This is seen and 
admitted by scientists of the highest authority. Professor 
Tyndall says, 'Hhere ought to be a clear distinction made 
between science in the state of hypothesis and science in 
the state of fact. And inasmuch as it is still in its hypo- 
thetical stage, the ban of exclusion ought to fall upon the 
theory of evolution." "It seemed high time to him (Vir 
chow) to enter an energetic protest against the attempts 
that are made to proclaim the problems of research as 
actual facts, and the opinions of scientists as established 
science. I could see that Carlyle's contention always was 
that the human soul has claims and yearnings which phys- 
ical science cannot satisfy. If asked whether science 
has solved, or is likely in our day to solve, the problem of 
the universe, I must shake my head in doubt. Behind and 
above and around us the real mystery of the universe lies 
unsolved, and, as far as we are concerned, is incapable of 
solution. The problem of the connection of body and soul 
is as insoluble in its modern form as it was in the pre-sci- 
entific ages." It is here admitted that science has noth- 



AFTEB-THOUGHTS. 309 

ing to reveal to us on these great questions. Religion 
alone remains, and if that fails to develope the highest life, 
what hope is left for humanity ? 

But our friend urges that his views have not had a fair 
chance. " We cannot tell what their effect would be if 
preached two thousand years." Why have they not been 
preached ? They were not unknown two thousand years 
ago. All down through the centuries they have found ex- 
pression, though never general acceptance. Is not this 
because they have failed to meet the wants of the human 
soul ? As to Christianity, does not the reply of Origen to 
the unbeheving Celsus, seventeen hundred years ago, still 
remain true ? "We do know that by these doctrines called 
foolishness, multitudes have been turned from lives of law- 
lessness to lives that are well-ordered." 

I am aware that in the views here advanced I have laid 
myself open to the charge of optimism. But I do not 
deny the existence of evil. I see it, and I feel the neces- 
sity and the duty of combatting it, believing that in the 
end all things will work together for good. There are 
mysteries which I cannot explain. There are creeds to 
which I cannot subscribe. But I cannot rest on the dark 
side of life. Some things I take on trust. I cannot throne 
on high the evil I see on earth. If I may not rest in that 
golden mean of omnism which sees both the good and the 
evil in nature, and aims to make the best of both, if there 
is no alternative between pessimism and optimism, then I 
am an optimist. I take my stand on the bright side of life. 
I accept the Gospel of the Agreeable. I reject the phi- 



310 FRATERNITY PAPERS. 

losophj of despair. I have no sympathy with that view of 
life which teaches that "men ought to be miserable, and 
they are, for they have committed the crime of being born." 

I utterly repudiate the pessimism of Humboldt, when he 
says, "I despise humanity in all its strata. I foresee that 
our posterity will be far more unhappy than w^e are. The 
whole of life is the greatest insanity, and if for eighty years 
one strives and inquires, one is still obliged finally to con- 
fess that he has striven for nothing and found out nothing. 
Did we at least only know why we are in this world ! But 
to the thinker everything is and remains a riddle, and the 
greatest good luck is to be born a blockhead." 

This is the despair of a spirit absorbed by the sole pur- 
pose of self-aggrandizement. I accept rather the philoso- 
phy of Victor Hugo, who holds that the wise man is never 
a pessimist, and that "it is a mighty impulse which drives 
the world onward ; and in spite of traitors, and bribe-takers 
and conquering and crowned criminals, it will move on- 
ward and ever onward toward higher and better states." 

I believe that every historical period has been an ad- 
vance upon its predecessors, and that on the whole the 
human race is growing happier and better. Nor does it 
seem rational to me that this progress and improvement 
shall cease with this life, that the aspirations unfulfilled 
here shall have no scope hereafter, and fade into nothing- 
ness with our perishable bodies. They are a part of our 
highest being ; they are of that essence which must be 
immortal, since this world is all too narrow for their wide 
reach, and time too short for their accomplishment. 



